Honoring Texas &amp; Louisiana's 2014 Best Projects

Construction and design firms, along with project stakeholders across the Texas and Louisiana region, submitted more than 80 entries in this year's regional Best Projects competition. Our independent panel of judges, representing diverse fields of expertise, selected 39 winners across 19 categories, described in detail in the following pages.

Photo by G. Lyon Photography Inc.

Community Asset: The newly restored exterior of the Leonel J. Castillo Community Center preserved three primary exterior walls, the main front facade and wing walls.

This year's award winners represented a wide array of construction projects in varied markets that were completed in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas between July 1, 2013, and June 30, 2014.

As always, safety is a major component in ENR's Best Projects contest. The Excellence in Safety award is now in its third year as part of the competition, with more than 50 entries submitted in this category, making for stiff competition. The panel of safety judges chose to honor one Excellence in Safety winner and three merit winners. Each of these projects has an outstanding safety record plus innovative jobsite-specific programs and procedures.

Eighteen projects won Best Project awards in their respective categories. These projects will advance to the national competition to be considered for one of ENR's Best of the Best awards.

In selecting the winners, our judging panel was charged with finding the teams that truly demonstrated an ability to find creative solutions in the face of unique and sometimes formidable challenges.

This year's Best Project of the Year for the region came down to two finalists: the Leonel J. Castillo Community Center (Best Project, Renovation/Restoration) and the East Baton Rouge Parish Main Library (Best Project, Government/Public Buildings). The judges' final selection for 2014 Project of the Year—the East Baton Rouge Parish Main Library—is featured on page TX26.

Read on to learn more about what made this year's top projects possible as well as the innovations achieved and challenges faced by the teams on each of this year's winners.

Texas & Louisiana Project of the Year

East Baton Rouge Parish Main Library (Baton Rouge, La.)

Airports/Transit

Best Project: UAS Hangar (Fort Hood, Texas)

Award of Merit: DFW International Airport Terminal B North Stinger (Dallas, Texas)

Cultural/Worship

Best Project: Thinkery (Austin, Texas)

Energy/Industrial

Best Project: VersaCutter (Belle Chasse, La.)

Award of Merit: Entergy Midtown 230kv Substation Demolition & Rebuild (New Orleans, La.)

Government/Public Buildings

Best Project: East Baton Rouge Parish Main Library (Baton Rouge, La.)

Award of Merit: Design-Build Recruit Family Inprocessing and Information Center at Lackland AFB (San Antonio, Texas)

Award of Merit: New Armed Forces Reserve Center at Camp Minden (Minden, La.)

Award of Merit: U.S. Coast Guard Houston-Galveston Sector Building (Houston, Texas)

Green Project

Best Project: TreeHouse Memorial City (Houston, Texas)

Health Care

Best Project: University Health System New Trauma Tower (San Antonio, Texas)