Summer may be high season for construction, but contractors in the Midwest have lowered their sights this year due to the lingering effects of recession in the region.
HILBOLDT Jane Hilboldt has been named central regional director with Women Construction Owners and Executives USA, an organization representing women owners and executives in the construction industry. Hilboldt, who is one of six regional directors for WCOE, is chairman and CEO of Hilboldt Curtainwall Inc., St. Louis. William F. Baker, a partner with Chicago-based architect/engineer Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, has received a 2011 Outstanding Projects and Leaders Lifetime Award for Design from the American Society of Civil Engineers. Baker, who is a structural engineer, is best known for developing the buttressed core design of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest
“If we’ve done our job, nobody knows about us,” he says. “If the building stands up, if it’s attractive and comfortable and everything is performing as it should, you’re not going to be thinking about the engineering.”
Building Bridges Large transportation projects such as the Miami and Glasgow bridge replacements in Missouri are helping to sustain Omaha-based architect/engineer HDR Inc.
Article toolbar The rough-and-tumble backdrop of factories and warehouses is more suggestive of urban grit than LEED Gold, making Chicago’s first sustainable streetscape, a two-mile-plus stretch along Cermak Road and Blue Island Avenue, an unlikely poster child for environmentally minded design. Photo courtesy of Chicago Department of Transportation Green Alleys The project team borrowed many elements, including pervious pavement, from Chicago’s successful Green Alleys program. “It may not seem glamorous, but engineering sustainability into basic elements such as streets and sewers can have a profound impact on our cities,” says Kevin Lentz, president of Chicago-based Knight E/A, the project’s engineer
SnapShot May 23, 2011 Submitted By: Doka USA Ltd. Little Ferry, N.J. A pair of “Super Climbers,” or self-climbing form systems, scale the heights of 2550 N. Lakeview, an 800,000-sq-ft luxury condominium in Chicago's Lincoln Park. The two systems allow general contractor Walsh Construction Co., Chicago, to build the structure's two cores as quickly as its horizontal slabs, thereby speeding up construction time. The $188-million Lakeview project is due for completion in early 2012. Photographer: Doka USA Ltd.
GANDHI BORDERS Zach Borders, an associate with the Chicago office of architect/engineer HOK, will serve as chairman of the first-ever junior board for Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University. The board raises awareness of educational outreach programs associated with the facility and also helps support restoration and preservation of the landmark building. Borders is an urban designer and certified planner with HOK’s planning group. George Vukelich has joined the Chicago office of engineer Clark Dietz Inc. as a business development professional for the firm’s civil/environmental group. Vukelich brings more than 20 years of sales and marketing experience to his role,
Like many Chicago executives, Joel Carlins, an attorney and co-chief executive officer at Magellan Development Group, used to occasionally take a break from work to play a round at Metro Golf Center, a nine-hole recreational oddity shoehorned among office towers lining Chicago’s lakefront.
Article toolbar The Prairie View Landfill and Recycling Facility in Wilmington, Ill., burns refuse-generated methane simply to rid the site of the substance. But rather than watch potential revenue go up in smoke, Houston-based Waste Management Inc. is constructing a $9.5-million generating plant at Prairie View to burn the gas and convert it to electricity. Photo Courtesy Of Waste Management Lots of wattage The three generators will each produce 1.6 MW of electricity. The plant contains sufficient room to include a fourth generator. Will County, which will receive up to $1 million per year in fees from the project, is
Article toolbar There are top project starts and there are non-starters, making ENRMidwest’s list of 2010’s Top Starts as notable for what’s absent as for what’s present. Image Courtesy Of Perkins + Will Old Man River A bridge linking St. Louis and St. Claire County, Ill., is the Midwest’s top project start. Still among the missing is just about anything smacking of commercial construction, particularly in the office, retail and hospitality sectors. Ditto multi-family housing, a sector suffering from foreclosures and plummeting housing values. In some areas, values continue to decline. The downturn is particularly acute in metropolitan Chicago, ground
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