The Southeast construction industry isn’t just busy, it’s producing exceptional work that is pushing the envelope in a range of projects from highways in Puerto Rico to universities in North Carolina.

More than 120 projects were submitted to ENR Southeast’s annual Best Projects competition this year, roughly a 50% increase in submissions compared with 2023, leaving judges a difficult task in choosing the 37 winners honored in the following pages. Many of the winning projects, which had to be completed between May 2023 and May 2024, were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic’s disruptions to supply chains and in-person work. Long lead times and delayed deliveries were almost ubiquitous challenges that teams had to overcome.

Many of this year’s winners required intense coordination among project teams to navigate tight sites or utility conflicts. All the winning projects came out on the other side of these challenges to deliver world-class projects.

View From the Top

This year’s Project of the Year finalists, chosen by the judging panels as the best they evaluated across multiple categories, include a glass-clad urban mixed-use complex, a greenfield railroad project and a sustainable, future-ready warehouse. They are all different projects with one big trait in common: They were exceptionally well managed and well built.

In Atlanta, Brasfield & Gorrie’s Midtown Union required coordinating a symphony of overhead cranes on a tight Atlanta site just 5 ft from a day care center. The project also took home the Excellence in Safety award. The three-tower complex was completed below budget and ahead of schedule.

Brightline’s new rail line into Orlando International Airport threaded a needle of existing infrastructure and utilities, an HNTB project set to have a $6.4-billion impact on the state’s economy. Crews innovated their way across the state, including designing and installing precast concrete tunnels in a way never before seen in North America.

In North Carolina, biotechnology company United Therapeutics’ new warehouse was built by DPR Construction to exacting standards to meet required around-the-clock temperature control and a zero-carbon design.

The Marie Selby Botanical Gardens’ Living Energy Access Facility was designed around an 80-ft bunya-bunya tree.
Photo by Ryan Gamma Photography

Safety, Sustainability Shine

Safety is the most important part of any project, and the winners of this year’s safety awards went above and beyond to keep their workers safe.

Midtown Union is taking home the Excellence in Safety award due in part to the project’s crane choreography and the planned implosion of an existing structure mere feet from neighbors.

The safety award of merit went to another Brightline project, a 129-mile, high-speed rail line capable of carrying trains up to 125 miles per hour. The team moved 400,000 cu yd of earth and placed more than 400,000 ties and 456,000 ft of continuous-welded rail while logging more than 4.7 million worker hours and recording an OSHA recordable incident rate of 1.12 and a lost-time accident rate of 0.21.

And as owners place more importance on sustainability, firms in the Southeast are rising to the challenge, with this year’s winners delivering cutting-edge work. The winner of the Excellence in Sustainability award went to the central energy plant and other sitework for Wake Technical Community College in North Carolina. The Skanska team dug nearly 300 500-ft-deep wells and laid nearly 56 miles of piping.

The award of merit winner, the Living Energy Access Facility at a Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Florida, has the environment at its heart in more ways than one, being designed around an 80-ft tree. Extensive sustainability initiatives have earned the project a Living Building Challenge recognition, surpassing LEED requirements.

A Project of the Year Finalist, Midtown Union in Atlanta features a German glass curtain wall assembled off site in Orlando and Baltimore before being shipped to the project site.
Photo by Katie Bricker

Meet the Judges

This year, nine expert industry judges evaluated projects for the main competition, split into three teams to score projects on multiple criteria. Judges evaluated how those teams overcame challenges, innovated and contributed to the industry and also evaluated the projects for quality and craftsmanship, function and aesthetics. Judges did not vote on projects in which they or their firms were involved.

The judges were: Stuart Bruening, senior vice president, Atlanta office leader, JE Dunn; Keith Douglas, executive vice president, Whiting-Turner Contracting Co.; Roy Garcia, senior vice president of architecture, Goodwyn Mills Cawood; Kathy Leo, vice president, business sector leader, community infrastructure, GAI Consultants; Eric Lindstrom, owner/designer, SFL+A Architects; Ron Osterloh, vice president and Georgia operations manager, Moffatt & Nichol; Ray Riddle, vice president, Holder Construction; Shirshant Sharma, senior project manager, Charlotte office leader, AtkinsRealis; and Ron Whalen, vice president, Roger B. Kennedy Construction.

The safety contest was judged by David Dickson, director of health, safety and environment, Dewberry, and Steve Sawyer, safety operations director, Brasfield & Gorrie. Sustainability judges were Cy Reichert, senior environmental project manager, VRX Inc., and Jacqui Hart, sustainability director, Goodwyn Mills Cawood.

All winning projects, as well as ENR Southeast’s firms of the year and Legacy Award winner will be honored in Orlando Oct. 29 at the Marriott Orlando Downtown during ENR Southeast’s Regional Best Projects Awards event. Read on to see which projects stand as the best in Southeast.