Numerous construction markets began to show signs of rebirth during 2011, and a considerable number of opportunistic and well-positioned Southeast contractors were able to start clawing back revenue previously lost during the recession. But it wasn't all good news, as ENR Southeast's annual Top Contractors ranking also reveals that while the seeds of recovery may have been sown for some in the past year, a broad-based resurgence remains elusive. Rendering courtesy of Hardin Construction Co. Housing markets are coming back in Florida. In Tampa, Hardin Construction is preparing to begin work on the Ella @ Encore apartment complex, part of
North Carolina's sprawling upgrade of the Interstate 85/485 interchange near Charlotte, N.C., is proving that a bigger design can actually deliver significant cost savings. Image courtesy of STV A rare 'turbine' configuration features sweeping ramps that should be easier to build and maintain than those in standard stacked interchanges. Related Links: Owner of the Year: North Carolina DOT 2011's Southeast Top Starts Ranking Part of the North Carolina Dept. of Transportation's (NCDOT) program to fill the last six-mile gap in the 65-mile I-485 outer loop around Charlotte, the interchange uses a two-level "turbine" configuration rarely found in the U.S. Also
By building a research laboratory to develop technologies to reduce the earth's carbon footprint, the Georgia Institute of Technology hopes both to help solve a nagging environmental issue and to provide a construction industry model for the production of "no-frills" net-zero energy-use buildings. Related Links: Clemson Architecture Building Schools Contractors in the Art of Net Zero Apple Gets Boost From Sun for iCloud Data Center The $22.4-million Carbon Neutral Energy Solutions Laboratory in Atlanta, targeting completion this fall, will develop technologies aimed at reducing global warming, such as carbon sequestration. From the start, though, the university faced an ironic twist.
The world's first known seawater district cooling, or SDC, system will be utilized on the $3.5-billion Baha Mar Resort project, currently under construction in Nassau, Bahamas. The $100-million, 12,000-ton system, developed by Ocean Thermal Energy Corp., Lancaster, Pa., will service the 3.5-million-sq-ft resort’s chilled-water needs with 40º F seawater drawn from a depth of more than 3,600 ft in the open Atlantic Ocean, off the New Providence Island Oceanic Shelf. Image courtesy DCO Energy LLC The underwater pipe will be routed in a naturally occurring trench. The above 3D image presents an "up-slope" view. DCO Energy LLC, Mays Landing, N.J.,
With its newest data center in North Carolina, Apple is hoping to get a boost from the sun to power its rapidly growing cloud services. It's also banking on one of the nation's largest fuel-cell installations of its kind in an effort to get completely off the electrical grid. Rendering courtesy of Apple Apple's Maiden, N.C., data center will draw power from a 20-MW solar farm and a 5-MW fuel-cell installation. Related Links: Editors' Choice, Best Green Project: Facebook Data Center Having completed a $1-billion, 500,000-sq-ft data center in Maiden, N.C., in late 2011, the computing giant recently began construction
A four-year-old biomass energy firm, backed in part by contractor investment, is succeeding where dozens of others have failed—in building one of the largest U.S. biomass plants that will turn waste wood into energy. While the $500-million project has had to deal with the low cost of competitive energy sources and a skeptical public, the accessibility of usable "fuel" in one of the country's most densely forested regions and the project's successful link with a local utility have allowed it to proceed where similar ventures have stalled. The project's developer, Boston-based American Renewables, is prevailing against a weak economy, low
This article originally appeared in ArchRecord.com. Photo courtesy Spillis Candela DMJM A recent photo of Miami Marine Stadium, an abandoned Modernist landmark designed in 1963 by then 27-year-old Cuban-American architect Hilario Candela. Photo courtesy Spillis Candela DMJM In 2009, the World Monuments Fund included the Miami Marine Stadium on its annual list of the "11 Most Endangered Places." Related Links: VIDEO: Miami Marine Stadium: Touring a Modernist Ruin Record Reveals: Miami The Miami City Commission is deliberating whether to give a nonprofit group the green light to rehabilitate Miami Marine Stadium, an abandoned Modernist landmark designed in 1963 by then
The March 12, 2012, issue of ENR Southeast magazine will feature a ranking of the region’s Top Project Starts in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas that broke ground in 2011. To have your project considered, we've created a form that readers can use to provide us with this infromation. The form, which is posted here in the "Related Links" box, should be completed and submitted by February 10, 2012. The annual Top Project Starts feature ranks the largest projects in the Southeast by construction contract value. Related Links: ENR Southeast's Top Starts Entry Form Owners, general contractors and design firms
Hurricanes and the sail effect dominated the thinking of the design team for the nation's first retractable-roof baseball park engineered to withstand 146-mph winds. To keep the lid on the 36,000-seat new Miami Marlins Ballpark during severe storms, without adding too much extra weight, the roof's structural engineer called for parking the roof panels 10 ft apart, in an almost-closed position. The gap-mode strategy, which reduces the sail effect, lightened up the roof by some 1,000 tons of steel, the engineer says. "Putting a big sail on top of this stadium in a hurricane-prone region was the [project's] biggest challenge,"
Merck challenged the construction team to deliver the facility considerably faster than past company and industry benchmarks. Merck's vaccine facility in Durham, N.C., was built at a cost of $315 million.
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