WestWest Construction NewsBest Projects2019

ENR California's Best Projects 2019: Diverse Mix of Public, Private Work Garners Award

SeaWorld’s Electric Eel roller coaster project required flexibility and innovation.

*PHOTO COURTESY OF RUDOLPH AND SLETTEN*

ENR California’s Best Projects competition received many entries representing a spectrum of specialty work from across the region. From a concert hall and an aquarium to a sheriff’s crime lab and a new homeless shelter, the always diverse 54 award-winning projects have one thing in common: excellence.

ENR California received more than 100 entries for this year’s competition, which included work from Northern California and Southern California, which includes Hawaii.

A group of judges representing various specialties and expertise were assembled to review, score and determine the winners for each region. Judges independently reviewed entries and convened with their peers to compare impressions and scores.

Together, the judging panels selected Best Project winners in a range of categories as well as award of merit honorees. Judges were asked to recuse themselves in cases of conflict of interest.

In a separate panel, ENR California’s safety judges considered a project’s overall safety program, OSHA recordable incident rate, lost-time accident rate and total work hours.

ENR California’s Projects of the Year exemplify the entries’ diversity and the breadth of skills, creativity and expertise required to produce structures that stretch design and construction skills and outshine existing norms.

In Northern California, ENR’s judges named the Oroville Spillways Emergency Recovery not only Project of the Year, but also lauded the team’s coordination and care in safely repairing the spillway on the nation’s tallest dam by honoring it with the region’s Excellence in Safety award.

In Southern California, the construction of SeaWorld’s Electric Eel roller coaster thrilled judges with the complex logistics of building a sky-high structure without the use of scaffolding.

ENR California’s 2019 judges are, in alphabetical order by first name: