Metal Stud Framing Contractor, Austin, TX

About a thousand Austin units, with the GCs who build them

A-Best self-performs light-gauge framing across the Austin metro working with Andres Construction, the employee-owned general contractor behind a large share of the city's mid-rise multifamily. We framed Korina at The Grove — 373 units, delivered March 2022 — along with Crestview Commons on North Lamar and The Huston on the I-35 frontage in East Austin.

Those are wrap and podium buildings — hundreds of units apiece, framed against inspection milestones that do not move. It is different work from a Hill Country custom home and we staff it differently: bigger crews, tighter layout, and a foreman who lives on the general contractor's schedule.

Usually we are the crew called when framing has to be rescued

At The Arnold on East 6th — 346 units over ground-floor retail at Plaza Saltillo — we came in to finish another contractor's scope. On StoryBuilt's townhome and multifamily work we were on site through the developer's collapse into receivership, and finished the job anyway.

Neither is work a subcontractor volunteers for. Both are why general contractors keep our number. Framing that is already behind, already wrong, or already walked away from is a specific problem, and the list of subs who will take it on is short.

What Austin mid-rise demands

Wrap construction over structured parking means slab-to-deck rated separation, shaft walls at every stair and elevator core, and firestopping at the head and every penetration that has to pass before anything closes in. Austin's inspection sequencing leaves less room to correct than most of the San Antonio market, so a failed framing inspection on a 350-unit building costs a general contractor days, not hours. We frame to the rated detail on the drawings the first time, then hang and finish the same walls — one trade owning the assembly from floor track to final coat.

The same crews handle our Austin tenant finish-outs and commercial drywall build-outs.

What we frame

• Interior & exterior metal-stud framing — partitions, load-bearing exterior light-gauge, full-height and slab-to-deck
• Curved & radius walls — feature walls, serpentine partitions, arcs framed true
• Soffits & bulkheads — dropped ceilings, light coves, mechanical chases
• Drop-ceiling grid & suspended ceilings — ACT grid, drywall ceilings, transitions
• Shaft & area-separation walls — elevator and stair shafts, tenant demising
• Load-bearing light-gauge — structural stud walls to the engineer's detail