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The 2022 Best Projects contest in the Mountain States featured close to 100 entries that highlighted the tenacity of the AEC industry during the height of the pandemic. Projects were judged on design and construction quality, contribution to the community and industry and how they overcame unusual challenges through teamwork and innovation. In addition to the typical challenges inherent to construction in the Mountain States, projects were confounded by supply chain issues and had to find ways to keep workers and staff safe and healthy as COVID-19 threatened to sideline entire crews.

This annual awards program would not be possible without our judges, who spent hours reviewing the entries and discussing the merits of each project. This year’s Best Projects judges were: Anahita Behrad, WSP USA; Tara Bettale, HDR; Matt Betts, JE Dunn Construction; Jeremy Bringard, CRSA; Matt Cecere, 4240 Architecture; Austin Dodder, Elder Construction; Jeff French, Atwell; Hailey Guglielmo, city of Aspen; John Heine, Morrison-Maierle; Daniel Herr, McCarthy Building Cos; Kris Kreymborg, JHL Constructors; Anne Kuechenmeister, Michael Baker International; Adam Mercer, RS&H; Will Peterson, AECOM; and Christiane Phillips, Method Studio.

The award for Excellence in Safety is now in its tenth year. An independent panel of safety experts considered many factors in their decisions, including a project’s overall safety program, OSHA recordable incident rate, lost-time accident rate and total work hours on the job. This year’s safety judges were: Daniel Milinazzo, Hensel Phelps Construction; Matt Ogle, JE Dunn Construction; and Rick Zellen, Zurich North America.

We also assembled a separate set of judges for this year’s entries to determine the most sustainable projects in the region. This year’s Mountain States sustainability experts included: Courtney Tucker with Colarelli Construction; Megan Burke of Tryba Architects; and Dennis Cigana with Jacobsen Construction.

After selecting the category winners, judges chose by consensus one project from the Colorado, Wyoming and Dakotas subregion and one from the Intermountain area (Utah, Idaho and Montana) as Projects of the Year. This year’s winners are the Pikes Peak Summit Visitor Center in Colorado Springs and the Idaho Central Credit Union Arena in Moscow, Idaho. We also honored four Project of the Year finalists: Lone Rock Retreat; Denver International Airport Great Hall – Phase 1; University of Utah Newborn ICU Ronald McDonald Family Space; and Kathryn Albertson Park.

Congratulations to this year’s winners!

Colorado Projects

Intermountain Projects