The fourth annual Best of the Best Projects Awards recognize outstanding projects completed in 2011. The projects honored here were chosen from more than 730 entries received by regional juried competitions overseen by our regional editors. From the preliminary round, 119 contenders moved on to Engineering News-Record’s Best of the Best Projects 2011 Awards competition to be reviewed by the panel of 17 industry veterans from all across the U.S. and all walks of construction and design. The panel scored each project on criteria such as innovation, community contribution, teamwork, safety and design and construction excellence, and then discussed the
Related Links: Obama Makes Three Recess Appointments to NLRB Business Groups Challenge New NLRB Rule NLRB Members Vote in Favor of Streamlining Union Election Process Let's make sure the U.S. never again has to hang up multiple vacancy signs for unfilled board seats at the National Labor Relations Board headquarters at 14th Street, N.W., in Washington, D.C. One way to avoid long vacancies in the first place is to lift the NLRB above the politics of business and unions so that the board's sole concern is the fair enforcement of U.S. labor law.To do that, we'll need longer-serving board members.President
Graphic courtesy of Tishman On one level of the World Trade Centers 16-acre, four-level basement, there are multiple and often competing stakeholders (each represented by a different color on the map). Courtesy Dig This LLC Dig This patrons can operate a Caterpillar D5 track-type bulldozer to create earthen mounds. Related Links: Editors' Picks: ENR's Top Stories of 2011 ENR readers kept many conversations alive this year—including and about types of innovation on major construction projects around the globe, a big iron playground in Vegas, tech trends on jobsites, trouble with BIM and viewpoints that struck more than a few nerves.Some
Photo by Tom Sawyer for ENR A schoolgirl rides a train in Northern Japan after the multiple disasters. White House photo President Obama and Congressional leaders struggled with transportation funding issues all year. Related Links: Readers' Choice: Most Popular ENR Stories of 2011 The editors of ENR looked back at the stories that stood out in 2011. With business slow and Congress deadlocked, much of the news centered on public works budgets, politics and tough times for unions. Technology continued to reshape communications, criminal indictments put some managers and executives in legal jeopardy, revolutions remade the Arab world and a
Materials Martin-Marietta Moves onAcquiring Vulcan Materials Martin-Marietta Materials, a Raleigh, N.C.-based aggregate supplier, made a tender offer on Dec. 12 to acquire Birmingham, Ala.-based Vulcan Materials Co. M-M has offered one of its shares for every two shares of Vulcan, a deal roughly valued at $4.7 billion. Vulcan operates in the Southeast, Southwest and California. M-M operates in the mid-Atlantic states, the Southeast and Midwest. M-M CEO C. Howard Nye, in a letter to Vulcan CEO Donald M. James, noted that the firms had been in merger discussions for over a year and a half but that Vulcan had broken
GREBBIENParsons Corp., Pasadena, Calif., has announced new roles for two top executives, following a corporate restructuring announced on Nov. 30. Virginia L. Grebbien is named president of the firm's new global environment and infrastructure group, which combines its former commercial technology and water infrastructure groups. Formerly president of the latter, she joined Parsons in 2008 from a previous role as western division manager for MWH Americas Inc. Parsons also named Michael M. "Mike" Walsh as president of its new Parsons Australasia group. His base location is still being determined, says the firm. Walsh was president of the commercial technology
New York Admirals Row, the historic six-acre site at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, moved a step closer to redevelopment with the New York City Council's approval last month of the site's transfer to the city from the federal government. The city, which owns the 300-acre Navy Yard, says it expects the property transfer to occur soon and that the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp. (BNYDC) may be able to issue a request for proposals by year-end.The redevelopment project will include construction of a 74,000-sq-ft supermarket, 79,000 sq ft of retail space and 127,000 sq ft of industrial space. The project
The U.S. Labor Dept.'s Occupational Safety and Health Administration is an important agency with a difficult mission. One thing made clear by OSHA's current leadership is that the agency isn't getting the full picture of what's taking place on U.S. construction sites, partly because of underreporting of injuries and partly because of a lack of timeliness in the information it receives about accidents. To that end, OSHA has proposed changes—and thecomment period has just closed—to Recordkeeping Standard 29 CFR1904. One of the most important changes, for example, would require employers to report all inpatient hospitalizations within eight hours and all
Battling to keep business afloat in a tough economic climate is hard enough, but the 98 contenders in this year's Best Projects competition had to go further than just completing the job.
Bristol, Conn. The Connecticut Laborers' District Council is not a fan of ESPN's choice of nonunion contractors to build a new $100-million, 193,000-sq-ft digital center in Bristol, Conn. The council is encouraging union players in the major sports leagues to boycott ESPN. The general manager charges that the GM, Associated Construction Co., Hartford, Conn., and site contractor, Mizzy Construction, Plainville, Conn., are nonunion shops that “do not pay living wages or follow area standards.”Neither ESPN nor the contractor firms returned calls for comment by press time. However, the Connecticut chapter of the Associated Builders and Contractors throws its support behind