Sun State Builders Receives Top Honors at 2025 RED Awards

PHOENIX - EntSun -- Gateway Executive Airpark, a 187,000-square-foot hangar facility located at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, was crowned Industrial Project of the Year (175,000–270,000 Square Feet) at the 2025 Real Estate Development (RED) Awards, presented by AZRE magazine. Leading design-build general contractor Sun State Builders was selected by project owners Jay Donkersloot and Steve McKendry to design-build the project. Construction on the $37 million development began in April 2021 and was completed in June 2024.

The project consists of three hangar buildings totaling 188,000 square feet. Virgin Galactic is the major tenant, occupying two of the hangars totaling approximately 153,000 square feet of the project. It serves as the spaceship manufacturer's final assembly facility for its next-generation Delta class spaceships. Gateway Executive Airpark and Sun State Builders worked directly with Virgin Galactic on revisions to the shell design to accommodate its specific needs. Boeing is another occupant in the remaining square footage.

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"We are very pleased to be recognized for our work on this project," states Mike Forst, CEO of Sun State Builders. "A big thank you to our incredible team and the trade partners that made it possible."

Design Consultants for the project include Winton Architects, T.J. McQueen and Associates for landscape design, GF Group Structural Engineering, Hawkins Design Group for electrical engineering, Mechanical Designs for mechanical engineering, and KAEKO, Inc. for civil engineering, Bunger Steel constructed the metal buildings and Riggs Concrete and Agate were the concrete subcontractors. The real estate brokers representing the property were Chris Rogers and Trevor McKendry at Daum Commercial.

The shell buildings are designed and constructed to accommodate up to eight separate users. The Hangars are specifically designed to accommodate G-5 aircraft with 12-foot wide by 14-foot tall power-operated, insulated overhead doors; stack-type, power-operated hangar doors that measure 28 feet tall and range from 90–160 feet wide; insulated exterior walls; and a "tail" section marking the entry to each pair of hangars.

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"This was one of the biggest years in RED Awards history," said Amy Lindsey, publisher of AZ Big Media, which produces AZRE magazine. "We had nearly 200 projects under consideration and picking the best projects from our record-setting pool of nominees was not easy."

The annual awards event is considered the Academy Awards of Arizona's commercial real estate industry, honoring the top architects, contractors, developers, and projects from the year prior. RED Awards were presented in 17 different project categories plus developer, contractor, subcontractor and architecture firm of the year. Sun State Builders had two projects listed as finalists in the Industrial Project of the Year (175,000–270,000 Square Feet) category.

To learn more about Sun State Builders projects and services visit https://sunstatebuilders.com/.