Each year, ENR's regional Best Projects competition includes two special awards, honoring those projects throughout the region that made significant achievements in the areas of safety and sustainability.

The Excellence in Safety Award is now in its tenth year. Our independent panel of safety judges considered many factors in their decisions, including a project’s overall safety program, OSHA recordable incident rate, lost time accident rate as well as total man hours on the job.

This year's safety experts included Kim Espinosa, director of safety at TEXO and Kim Mason, senior director of safety services at AGC Houston.

ENR Texas & Louisiana is proud to honor three projects for their outstanding safety records and job-site procedures:

Excellence in Safety Award
Cook Children’s Health Care System, South Tower 5th Floor Renovation
Fort Worth
Submitted by Linbeck Group LLC

Award of Merit, Excellence in Safety
 U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs San Antonio Outpatient Clinic
 San Antonio
 Submitted by Jacobsen Construction Co. 

Award of Merit, Excellence in Safety
Broadway Chapter
Fort Worth
Submitted by Cadence McShane Construction 

Next is the second annual Excellence in Sustainability award. These projects were judged by a separate jury from the main contest. Special thanks to Jennifer Snape, owner and managing partner at Batture LLC and Mikel Wilkins, director of sustainability at TBG Partners, for comprising our panel of sustainability judges.

Some of the factors our judges considered were how well project teams went above and beyond baseline industry requirements, a project's overall sustainability strategy, choice of materials, energy savings and its environmental impacts, not only within its own footprint but also on the community it serves.

This year, the panel selected two winning projects:

Excellence in Sustainability Award
Texas Tower
Houston
Submitted by Gilbane Building Co.

Award of Merit, Excellence in Sustainability
University of Texas at Dallas, Campus Landscape Enhancements Phase III
Richardson, Texas
Submitted by Linbeck Group LLC 

All winning project teams — as well as our Owner of the Year, Design Firm of the Year, Contractor of the Year, Specialty Contractor of the Year and Legacy Award winner — will be celebrated in Houston on Oct. 13 at the InterContinental Houston – Medical Center.

Click here for more information and to register for the event.

Congratulations to this year's winners!