Hoar Construction

Hoar Construction is a Birmingham, Alabama, general contractor that Friend Reed Hoar started in 1940, when the company mostly built churches. It’s still privately held and still based in Birmingham, on Metroplex Drive, with offices across the Southeast and Texas, including Atlanta, Nashville, Memphis, Orlando, Tampa, Houston, Austin and Washington, D.C. The firm handles preconstruction and construction for healthcare, education, hospitality, office, retail and mixed-use, industrial, aviation and residential clients, and it ranks among the country’s 200 largest contractors. Its history page credits it with Birmingham’s Eastwood Mall, begun in 1959 as the Southeast’s first enclosed mall. In September 2026, Strategic Property Partners named Hoar general contractor for the Four Seasons Hotel and Residences Charleston, a 139-room hotel with 36 residences at 155 Meeting Street.

Hoar’s published timeline is the clearest explanation of how a Birmingham church builder became a multi-state contractor, because the expansion happened by division rather than by acquisition. Richard Nichols Hoar joined his father in 1947. Construction on Eastwood Mall began in 1959 – the Southeast’s first enclosed mall, and one of only five air-conditioned malls in the world at the time – opening in 1960 on eight acres. The Healthcare Division was established in Birmingham in 1991, the Texas Division in Houston in 1997, the Florida Division in Orlando in 1998, Program Management in Birmingham the same year, and the Tennessee Division in Nashville in 2001. Atlanta opened in 2019.

Third-party recognition arrived alongside that growth: Company of the Year from Construction Dive, a place in Engineering News-Record’s Top 100 Contractors list, and designation as an Accredited Quality Contractor by Associated Builders and Contractors. The ABC accreditation is the one specifiers tend to overlook; it covers safety, training and workforce development practices rather than project outcomes.

The process side is published as five named disciplines – preconstruction, safety, quality assurance, lean construction and technology. Lean construction appearing as its own practice is notable. It implies pull planning and last-planner scheduling as standard method rather than a client-requested extra, and the firm publishes lean lessons-learned material to back it up. The company’s commitment is stated plainly: its process is designed to eliminate risk for clients by guaranteeing a project is delivered according to plan, working with local and experienced trade partners in each market.

Market sectors run across aviation and aerospace, civic and government, cultural and entertainment, education, healthcare, hospitality, industrial, office and commercial, residential, and retail and mixed use. Offices cover Birmingham as corporate headquarters plus Atlanta, Austin, Chattanooga, East Texas, Houston, Memphis, Nashville, North Texas, Orlando, Tampa, Washington DC and West Texas.

Recruitment is structured for the long game, with student programs and a Future Field Leaders program alongside current openings, and a subcontractor application route for trade partners.