April 27, 2011 Photo (bottom) courtesy of LA. Dept. of transportation and development; Photo (top) courtesy of nucor Nucor Corp., Charlotte, N.C., broke ground on March 7 on a $750-million facility in St. James Parish, La. Nucors chairman and CEO, Dan DiMicco (second from right), spoke at the event, along with Gov. Bobby Jindal (at podium) and Stephen Moret (second from left), economic development secretary for Louisiana. The facility will produce direct reduced iron, which is used by Nucors steel mills, along with recycled scrap, to produce steel products such as sheet and special bar quality steel. Nucor says it
STONE LEE Tommy Lee, safety director and a 30-year veteran of W.S. Bellows, Houston, has been named 2010 Safety Director of the Year for the second consecutive year by the Houston Chapter of the American Subcontractors Association. Dennis K. Henning has been named a senior engineering manager in the Dallas office of Parsons Brinckerhoff, a global infrastructure, strategic consulting, engineering and program management firm. He will be responsible for developing and managing transit and rail projects throughout PB's south central region. Henning has more than 35 years of civil and environmental engineering and project and program management experience. Joel Stone
SnapShot April 18, 2011 Submitted By: Tom Walsdorf,Area Superintendent, Cajun Constructors Inc., Baton Rouge, La The contractor began placing cranes at this U.S. Army Corps of Engineers site in fall 2010 to do H-pile and sheet-pile driving in advance of the concrete placement. Work is surging ahead, with more than 100 cranes now on site. This stretch of the levee is approximately 43,370 ft long. The work consists of constructing a new reinforced concrete T-wall supported by steel H-piles to be built on the existing levee. Photo: Chalmette Loop Levee New Orleans, La.
On The Scene April 18, 2011 Perot Museum of Nature & Science Onlookers cheer as the ceremonial beam is placed at a topping-out event held on March 10 for the Perot Museum of Nature & Science in Dallas. The gathering took place on the 17th floor of Park Seventeen, which overlooks the construction site. Ross and Margot Perot and family members along with Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne were among those who signed the steel beam topping the structure, which was hoisted into place by a crane operator for contractor Balfour Beatty. Plans call for the beams to be placed
The federal team investigating last year’s Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 men in the Gulf of Mexico will conduct a week of hearings on April 4-8 in Metairie, La., to focus specifically on a forensic examination of the failed blowout preventer on the well. Conducted by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement as well as the U.S. Coast Guard Joint Investigation Team, the hearings follow the March 20 release of a report by Norwegian risk-management specialist Det Norske Veritas on the blowout preventer. DNV tested, examined and investigated the failure of the 50-ft, 300-ton BOP in
New Orleans has a better defense should another big storm hit the city. But it’s never going to be completely safe. JoEllen Darcy (left), assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, speaking in New Orleans. At right are Gen. Robert Van Antwerp, chief of Engineers for the Corps of Engineers and Colonel Edward Fleming, commander of the Corps� New Orleans districts. “You can’t eliminate risk no matter where you are,” said Jo Ellen Darcy, assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works, at a March 22 press conference in New Orleans. “What we are doing here is buying down
Plus Concrete, Inc., a subsidiary of RMD Holdings, Ltd., New Haven, Mich., began work March 10 on Phase Two of the $6.7-million rehabilitation of about 3.5 miles of Magazine Street in New Orleans. The project is part of the $118-million South Louisiana Submerged Roads Program (SRP), a comprehensive program to repair and resurface roughly 56 miles of roads in the Greater New Orleans area that were damaged as a result of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. RMD Holdings has six contracts for projects in the SRP. Photo: DOTD The city of New Orleans contributed funding to install new blue
Louisiana drivers are paying a congestion tax, as well as wasting time and money on sitting in traffic that is caused, in part, by Louisiana’s failure to adequately fund transportation, says Ken Perret, president of the Louisiana Good Roads and Transportation Association (http://www.louisianagoodroads.org/index.html). Baton Rouge has the worst traffic congestion in the nation among mid-sized cities, according to the Texas Transportation Institute’s (TTI) Urban Mobility Report 2010 (http://tti.tamu.edu/documents/mobility_report_2010.pdf). The College Station, Texas-based organization is a part of Texas A&M University system and a Texas state agency. PERRET The cost to Louisiana’s capital city drivers is equivalent to 37 hours, 30
The last fully funded segment of the $622 million I-49 North extension from I-220 in Shreveport to the Arkansas state line was awarded on February 18 by the Louisiana Dept. of Transportation and Development (DOTD). James Construction Group LLC, Baton Rouge, won a $25.7-million contract to build a 3.4-mile segment of the four-lane interstate from La. Hwy 530 to La. Hwy 170. Work should begin this spring and last until spring 2013. To date, the Louisiana DOTD has awarded nine contracts valued at $460 million for construction of the I-49 North corridor. Two remaining segments of the corridor–critical to freight
Bernita Beilkmann has been promoted to associate principal at HKS Inc. , a Dallas-based architectural firm. In addition, the firm has named Jonathan Kelly, Frank Kittredge, Paul Liptak, Jason Schroer and Michael Ufer associate principals in its Dallas office. Larry LeMaster was promoted to principal. Rupert Brown, Shane Mommers and Rachel Saucier were elevated to vice principals. BEILKMANN Matt Peck has been named the newest tax partner at Dallas-based Lane Gorman Trubitt PLLC . The firm also promoted Candice King to principal and bothMark Opdahl and Donna Nuernberg to supervising seniors. C. Britton Coffman has been promoted to senior associate
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