FOUNDING AND EARLY YEARS (1924–1949)
Carl Osborn Barton founded the C.O. Barton Company on August 4, 1924, in Detroit, Michigan.[1] The firm's initial work consisted of interior renovations for Michigan Bell Telephone Company.[8]
In 1927, Malow joined the company as vice president and treasurer and the firm was eventually renamed to Barton Malow Company.[1]
POSTWAR GROWTH AND REORGANIZATION (1949–1964)
Ben Maibach Jr., who had joined the company as a laborer in 1938 and worked his way through field management roles, eventually became a co-owner alongside Harold Butler.[11][12][13][14] By 1960, Maibach Jr. had become president of the company.[11]
In 1951, Barton Malow established a profit-sharing and pension plan for its employees, described as the first such plan by a U.S. contractor.[11]
By the early 1960s, Barton Malow was ranked among the 100 largest contractors in the United States by Architectural Forum, a nationally circulated Time Inc. trade publication, placing 35th in volume for general contractors and second in Michigan.[15][16]
CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT AND THE SILVERDOME ERA (1964–1984)
In 1964, Barton Malow began construction of a 2.6-million-square-foot stamping plant in Woodhaven, Michigan, for Ford Motor Company. The project, built to support production of the Ford Mustang, employed fast-track construction methods in which construction began before design documents were fully complete — an approach the company later promoted as the construction management (CM) delivery method.[17][18][19]
In the early 1970s, Rollie Wilkening, then Barton Malow's executive vice president, served on construction management committees of the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) and became a prominent advocate for CM, delivering a presentation titled "Prelude to Success or Is It Really For Me?" at the 1973 National AGC Convention in San Francisco.[17][19][20] In 1973, the Metropolitan Building Journal described Barton Malow as "the recognized forerunner in the Construction Management field."[19]
During this period, the company also completed construction of the Pontiac Silverdome (1973–1975), a stadium for the Detroit Lions featuring a 10-acre Teflon-coated fiberglass roof supported entirely by air pressure — among the earliest major athletic facilities to feature such a roof.[21][22] The $55.7 million project was completed in 23 months, on time and within budget.[21][23] The project cited by the National Society of Professional Engineers as one of the "10 Outstanding Engineering Achievements" of 1975.[24] The Silverdome's success led to subsequent dome stadium contracts, including the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis and the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.[25]
Barton Malow's relationship with General Motors dates to at least 1964, when Engineering News-Record named the firm as one of three Detroit contractors that performed the majority of GM's construction work.[26] That relationship expanded in the early 1980s when GM awarded Barton Malow construction management contracts for assembly plants in Orion Township, Michigan, and Wentzville, Missouri, each valued at approximately $400 million.[18] The firm also managed construction of the Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Center, which carried a budget of $600 million and was described as one of the most complex auto assembly plants under construction in the United States.[27][28] By 1980, the company's annual contracts exceeded $1.15 billion, placing it 23rd among all U.S. contractors on the ENR Top 400 list.[29]
Ben Maibach III became president in 1981, continuing family leadership of the company.[8]
SPORTS VENUES AND GEOGRAPHIC EXPANSION (1984–2010)
The company's sports construction portfolio expanded during this period. Other projects during this period included:
In other sectors, Barton Malow served as part of the joint venture for the Detroit Metropolitan Airport North Terminal Redevelopment.[39] The company also expanded its healthcare portfolio, serving as construction manager for the University of Virginia Replacement Hospital — at the time the largest state hospital construction program in Virginia history — and the Shriners Hospitals for Children Burns Unit in Boston, which required constructing a new facility above an occupied, in-use hospital and won the 2000 AGC Build America Award.[40] [41]
In 2001, the company moved into a self-designed and self-built headquarters in Southfield, Michigan, a $22 million facility that opened in November 2001.[42]
RECENT HISTORY (2011–PRESENT)
Ryan Maibach, Ben III's son and a Purdue University construction management graduate who had joined the firm in 1997, was appointed president and CEO in 2011.[8]
The company entered the electric vehicle and battery manufacturing construction market, building lithium-ion battery plants for Ultium Cells (a then-General Motors–LG Energy Solution joint venture) in Lordstown, Ohio; Spring Hill, Tennessee; and Lansing, Michigan.[43][44] Barton Malow also served as construction manager for the Ford BlueOval SK Battery Park in Glendale, Kentucky, a 1,500-acre campus.[45][46]
Barton Malow's higher education and healthcare work has also continued. The firm served as construction manager for the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, designed by Zaha Hadid, which was named ENR Midwest Overall Project of the Year in 2013.[47] More recently, the company is part of the tri-venture constructing the $2.2 billion Henry Ford Health Destination: Grand expansion in Detroit, a 20-story hospital tower that in 2025 marked the worldwide first placement of W14x1000 steel columns in a healthcare facility.[48]
The firm is also the general contractor for Hudson's Detroit, the largest ground-up development in Detroit in over 50 years. [49][50]
The company has also expanded its delivery methods to include design-build and Integrated Project Delivery; Building Design + Construction has ranked Barton Malow the top IPD construction firm in the United States in its Giants 400 report each year from 2022 through 2025.[51]
As of 2024, the company reported more than 3,300 employees with offices across nine U.S. states and two Canadian provinces.
LIFTbuild
LIFTbuild, a wholly owned subsidiary of Barton Malow, developed a top-down construction method for high-rise buildings. The technology, which drew on four years of research and development and 15 patents, assembles building floors at ground level and then lifts them into place along structural concrete cores using a jacking system.[52][53]
The proof-of-concept project, the Exchange building in Detroit's Greektown neighborhood, broke ground in September 2021. Sources report varying figures for the Exchange building; as‑built documentation and trade coverage describe the 16‑story tower as approximately 166,000 square feet with 153 rental apartments and 12 condominiums, while contemporaneous news reporting cited a larger overall floor area and higher condominium count.[52][53][54] The project marked the first top‑down high‑rise building constructed in the United States since the 1970s, according to Engineering News‑Record.[52] The final floorplate was lifted in January 2023.[55] The $64.6 million project was described by its developers as the first residential development in Greektown in approximately 60 years.[55]
Proponents argue the method improves worker safety by eliminating much work at height and enables better quality control through an enclosed, climate-controlled work environment. The Exchange project was completed approximately 8% ahead of schedule, and the development team has projected potential timeline reductions of 20–30% on future projects as the process matures. [52] [55]
In June 2023, Harvard Business School published a case study titled "Barton Malow: Building From the Top-Down," examining the company's efforts to commercialize LIFTbuild and the challenges of innovating within a traditionally slow-to-change industry.[9]
Industry Involvement and Recognition
Barton Malow has been a long-standing member of the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC). Ben Maibach Jr. served as president of the AGC Detroit Chapter, as did his son Ben Maibach III in 1986, while executive vice president Rollie Wilkening held a chapter leadership role in the 1970s.[19][56]
The company has received multiple AGC Build America Awards, including for the Shriners Hospitals for Children in Boston (2000)[57], University of Michigan Stadium (2011)[58], Daytona International Speedway (2017 Grand Award)[59], the Notre Dame Campus Crossroads project (2019)[60], and BlueOval SK Battery Park (2026)[61]. Outside the construction industry, Barton Malow has been named to Newsweek's Most Trustworthy Companies in America list (compiled by Statista).
References
Ahrens, Ronald (2024-04-09). "Build to Suit". DBusiness Magazine. Retrieved 2026-04-15. "The 1962 Forum Directory of the 100 Biggest Architects / Contractors / Clients". Architectural Forum. 1962. ;
"Barton Malow Exec Heads AGC Delegation To S.F. Convention". Metropolitan Building Journal. 1973-03-19.
"Building Case History: Pontiac Silverdome". Bethlehem Steel. 1976.
"A Historic Project for a Historic University". Construction Reports.
Comment: In accordance with the Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use, I disclose that I have been paid by my employer for my contributions to this article. Sakrueg (talk) 16:12, 15 April 2026 (UTC)