For this year's Best Projects contest, ENR Southeast's panel of judges nominated two entries for the top award, the Southeast Project of the Year. In October, after ENR Southeast blogged the nominees—the Florida Polytechnic University's Innovation, Science and Technology Building and the PortMiami Tunnel—we heard from one project representative that the two were being viewed as "beauty and the beast."
While that perspective is certainly understandable, considering the pair's vastly different details, it should also be said that, really, both are beautiful examples of construction and engineering excellence. And in attempting to settle the debate over which of these two projects—each beautiful in its own way, and both surely "beasts" to build—ENR Southeast's independent panel of judges ultimately decided that both were worthy of the top award.