Johnson County Gateway, Winona Bridge take ACI concrete construction awards

Updated Oct 19, 2017
Johnson County Gateway. Screenshot from JCG video.Johnson County Gateway. Screenshot from JCG video.

The American Concrete Institute (ACI) honored the winners of the 2017 Excellence in Concrete Construction Awards during its Concrete Convention & Exposition Monday night in Anaheim. The awards honor creative projects in the concrete industry and recognize concrete innovation, technology, and excellence. To be eligible for the award, projects had to win at a local ACI Chapter level and be submitted by that Chapter, or chosen by one of ACI’s International Partners.

An independent panel judged the projects and selected winners based on architectural and engineering merit, creativity, innovative construction techniques or solutions, innovative use of materials, ingenuity, sustainability and resilience, and functionality. Two infrastructure projects were among the award recipients.

First Place went to Johnson County Gateway, a $288 million project in Overland, Kan., which added additional lanes and reconfigured existing interchanges along I-435/I-35/K-10 corridor. The first design-build project awarded by the Kansas Department of Transportation involved the placement of more than 600,000 cubic yards of pavement concrete. The project began in Spring 2014 and was completed before the December 31, 2016 deadline.

Project team members included the Kansas Department of Transportation; architect, HDR; engineering firm, George Butler Associates; general contractor, Gateway Interchange Constructors; concrete contractor, Clarkson Construction; and concrete supplier, Fordyce Concrete Co. Inc.

“This award is a reflection of an amazing group of professionals that, through extreme dedication and at many times the sacrifice of their families, delivered a massive and complex project on an aggressive schedule, and to be recognized by our industry peers is simply quite humbling,” a statement from George Butler Associates reads.

Second Place went to Winona Bridge, a $78 million project in Winona, Minn., that provides travel over the Mississippi River between Minnesota and Wisconsin while a historic bridge is being rehabilitated. The 2,300-foot, context-sensitive concrete bridge was Minnesota’s first bridge to be built using the Construction Manager/General Contractor (CM/GC) method, which allowed the project to achieve a 15-month time savings..

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Project team members included the Minnesota Department of Transportation; engineering firmFIGG Bridge Engineers, Inc.; general contractor, Ames Construction; and concrete supplier, Modern Ready Mix.