ENR Mountain States magazine has previously announced our 2017 Best Projects award winners (see my editor’s blog on this website). Now, after tabulating final results and polling our judges, we are ready to announce the finalists for Project of the Year in both the Intermountain area (Utah, Idaho and Montana) and Colorado/Wyoming and the Dakotas.

The voting for Project of the Year was close, as always, but a handful of projects emerged as finalists. To be considered for this honor, a project had to be a winner (first place) in its individual category and receive a first-place vote from more than one judge and at least two second-place votes from others.

The winners of the Project of the Year award will be announced at the Best Projects breakfast award ceremonies in Denver (Oct. 25) and Salt Lake City (Oct. 31). Here are the finalists in alphabetical (not ranked) order.

Colorado/Wyoming & the Dakotas Project of the Year Finalists

• Pioneer Crossing Restaurant on Peak 7, Breckenridge, Colo. First-place winner in the Residential/Hospitality category. Entry submitted by Hyder Construction; owner: Vail Resorts Development Co. The 17,000-sq-ft restaurant is a heavy timber-and-steel frame building sited at the top of the Independence Chair lift on Peak 7. Located at 11,400 ft, the project is the second highest on-mountain restaurant in the country. It seats 490 patrons and includes ski-patrol facilities.
• Polsinelli Tenant Improvement, Denver. First-place winner in the Interiors/Tenant Improvement category. Entry submitted by JE Dunn Construction; owner: Polsinelli. The new 86,000-sq-ft, LEED-Silver Polsinelli office features a large outdoor terrace on the 23rd floor that spans the entire west elevation of the building.
• Sanford Medical Center, Fargo, N.D. First-place winner in the Health Care category. Entry submitted by Mortenson; owner: Sanford Health. The new 11-story, 384-bed medical center incorporates LEED standards and has four hospital towers that enable all patient rooms to have large windows with unobstructed views.

Intermountain Area Project of the Year Finalists

• 111 Main, Salt Lake City. First-place winner in the Office / Retail / Mixed-Use category. Entry submitted by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM); owner: City Creek Reserve Inc. 111 Main is a 501,445-sq-ft Class A office building. Targeting LEED Gold, the 387-ft tall tower rises 25 stories above grade, including a mechanical penthouse roof level, as well as a basement level.
• Beverly Taylor Sorenson Center for the Arts, Cedar City, Utah. First-place winner in the Cultural/Worship category. Entry submitted by Big-D Construction; owner: Utah Division of Facilities Construction and Management. Located on the Southern Utah University campus, the new center for the arts encompasses 5.5 acres of site development and two new buildings—the Southern Utah Museum of Art and the Utah Shakespeare Festival Facility.
• Three Peaks Solar, Cedar City, Utah. First-place winner in the Energy/Industrial category. Entry submitted by Swinerton Renewable Energy; owner: Clenera. Three Peaks Solar is an 80 MW solar facility and 138kV substation that sits on 739 acres in Cedar City. It is one of the first projects in the United States to feature SMA’s 2500 EV inverters.

Project of the Year winners will be announced at their respective Regional Best Projects Awards events in Denver (Oct. 25) and Salt Lake City (Oct. 31). Please plan to join us for the celebrations.

Information and registration for the Best Projects events is available at: http://www.enrbestprojectsawards.com/