Centennial Mayor Cathy Noon, members of the city council and more than 300 residents gathered in the Festival Plaza of Centennial Center Park in late April to celebrate the grand opening of Centennial’s first civic park. Design Concepts of Lafayette, a community and landscape architecture firm specializing in parks, multigenerational play areas and schools, designed the master plan for the park. Photo courtesy of Design Concepts The parks playground complex is sunken, surrounded by walls and trees, and offers parents and other childcare providers good views of the entire playground area. The 11-acre park is located next to the Centennial
Matrix Design Group Inc., a Colorado-based engineering, consulting and planning firm, has acquired the assets of Design Studios West Inc., a Denver-based landscape architecture and planning firm. Design Studios West has merged into Matrix’s operations as part of its planning and design group. As part of the acquisition, Don Brandes, former president of Design Studios West, joins Matrix as vice president and director of landscape architecture and urban design. Brandes also brings to Matrix his senior staff, including Bob Eck, landscape architect and planner; Mark Nemger, planner; and Ian Anderson, landscape architect.The Design Studios West staff will continue to serve
New construction starts in April advanced 11% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $531.3 billion, according to McGraw-Hill Construction, a division of The McGraw-Hill Cos. The increase for April followed a 23% gain in March, as contracting soared well above its lackluster pace at the outset of 2012. Much of the lift in March came from work at a nuclear power facility in Georgia, and a similar lift was provided in April by work at a nuclear power facility in South Carolina.Aside from the strength shown by electric utilities, April drew support from an improved amount of public works
Construction employment remained on a seesaw in April as only 19 states added jobs, 28 states and the District of Columbia had declines and three states maintained March employment levels, according to an analysis by the Associated General Contractors of America of Labor Department data. The year-over-year figures showed a similar but slightly better pattern, association officials added, as 22 states and D.C. posted construction employment increases between April 2011 and 2012 while 27 lost jobs and employment was unchanged in Rhode Island.“The close balance between job gainers and losers among states reflects the sluggish growth in construction nationally,” said
The Associated Builders and Contractors Rocky Mountain Chapter held its annual Safety Awards dinner on May 18. More than 160 ABC members and guests attended the event. The awards recognize ABC member companies that have shown outstanding commitment and dedication to the health and safety of their employees. Photo courtesy of ABC ABCs Platinum STEP winners display their awards at the May 17 celebration. The safety winners included:Most Improved Safety ProgramShaw Construction, DenverOutstanding Safety Program for General Contractors • Less than 150,000 man-hours: (tie), Stanek Constructors Inc., Golden; and Gracon Corp., Loveland• 150,000 – 350,000 man-hours: Roche Constructors Inc., Greeley•
The Associated General Contractors of Colorado honored its members for their safety achievements on May 22 in a ceremony that included the chapter’s annual Construction Safety Excellence Awards. Photo by Mark Shaw Denvers PCL Construction Services Inc. was honored for being the Grand Award winner in AGCs national safety competition in March. Pictured, left to right: AGC/C Executive Director Michael Gifford, 2012 AGC/C Chairman Dave Morrill, PCL Vice President and District Manager Trey Nobles, PCL U.S. Director of Health, Safety and Environment Rich Baldwin and PCL President Al Troppmann. The CSEA program recognizes general and specialty contractors who participated in
The Colorado Chapter of Society for Marketing Professional Services hosted the annual Marketing Excellence Awards on May 17. In addition to highlighting the industry’s best-of-the-best marketing pieces and individuals, this year marks the 30th anniversary for the SMPS Colorado Chapter. Photo by Joel Eden Photography Lisa Jelliffe with the Worth Group won the chapters highest honor, the Leonardo Award, for 2012. The following members were recipients of individual awards.Leonardo Award Recipient: Lisa Jelliffe, Worth Group, DenverThe Leonardo Award is given by SMPS Colorado to honor achievement at the highest level in marketing and business development for the A/E/C industry. Since
The excuses. I have heard them all by now: “You’ve got to have good people to have a good team” or “You can’t have a high performance team on a public, low-bid project” or “There has to be sufficient resources and funding.” Consider that great or world-class project teamwork has little to do with your project’s circumstances. Rather, it is about how your team deals with those circumstances—as a team.On Caltrans and Kiewit-Pacific’s $700-million Benicia-Martinez Bridge, the geotechnical conditions found were at variance with the geo-tech report. This led to an enormous change order that delayed the project for well
Construction-technology provider Trimble broke ground May 14 for its new Rockies campus, a 125,000-sq-ft, four-story building on 15 acres in the Westmoor area of Westminster. The company’s new location will house all of its existing employees, with space to accommodate up to 570 people. Trimble initially opened its Colorado location in October 2000 with 43 employees at the Church Ranch Office Center in Westminster, occupying approximately 29,000 sq ft.Today, Trimble leases approximately 98,000 sq ft in Westminster’s Westmoor Technology Park, with more than 400 employees who primarily focus on marketing, testing and applications engineering in the construction, surveying, agriculture and
The Colorado Dept. of Transportation has officially kicked off the 2012 construction season in the northeast section of the state. Altogether, more than 150 miles of highway will be under construction, with costs totaling more than $110 million in Boulder, Larimer, Logan, Morgan, Phillips, Sedgwick, Washington, Weld and Yuma counties. “It’s going to be a busy summer in our region of the state,” said CDOT Regional Director Johnny Olson. “We have a wide variety of projects that will be under way, including an interchange reconstruction at the intersection of two major highways, bridge replacements in multiple counties, much-needed resurfacings,
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