A $45-million program to revitalize the historic St. Louis Central Library has not only captured ENR Midwest's Project of the Year award in the category of Renovation/Restoration, but also received the annual competition's prestigious Safety Award.

The library logged 291,000 man hours without lost time to accident, despite a challenging construction program and difficult working conditions within the 100-year-old facility. Among other tacts, St. Louis based general contractor BSI Constructors Inc. executed the project's safety program in accordance with provisions of OSHA's Voluntary Protection Program, an initiative that places special emphasis on hazard prevention and control, work-site analysis, training and cooperation between management and workers.

For the Central Library, workers were required to complete OSHA 10 or 30 prior to arriving on site.

For these and other reasons, and independent panel of safety experts has awarded St. Louis Central Library with ENR Midwest's top safety prize.

Panelists also honored the Wisconsin Energy Institute, a facility in Madison, with a Safety Award of Merit. The project logged nearly 400,000 man hours with 0 recordable incidents, an achievement the project's general contractor, Mortenson Construction, Brookfield, Wis., in part attributes to nine best practices employed both during and prior to site work.

Both projects will be honored at an awards breakfast at the Crowne Metro Chicago Plaza on Nov. 22. They also will be featured in the Nov. 18 edition of ENR Midwest as part of the publication's coverage of the year's Best Projects.