CU Students Returning to Africa with EWB-USA/Forest City to Receive NBM Honor/AGC of America Awards Local Companies

Five engineering students and a professor from the University of Colorado at Boulder are heading to Rwanda this month with Engineers Without Borders-USA to help a village suffering from poverty, drought and unsafe drinking water.

CU Engineering Students Plan Return to Rwanda

Five engineering students and a professor from the University of Colorado at Boulder will be part of a team returning to Rwanda May 9-25 to help a village suffering from poverty, drought and unsafe drinking water.

The team will work with vocational students in the village of Muramba to install rainwater catchment systems that will augment clean drinking water supplies for approximately 6,000 people. The systems will include two 10,000-liter tanks constructed of locally produced compression bricks.

The project is part of the Engineering for Developing Communities program at CU Boulder and Engineers Without Borders-USA, a national, nonprofit organization founded by CU Boulder Prof. Bernard Amadei. He will accompany the students on the trip - the fourth visit by an EWB group to Muramba since March 2004.

Groups of students from CU Boulder and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have returned twice to do maintenance on an old gravity-fed water system and install solar-powered lighting in a local clinic and school.

The project was selected for the 2004 Humanitarian Award by the EWB-USA board of directors.

Forest City to Receive NBM Honor Award

The National Building Museum will present its 2005 Honor Award to Forest City Enterprises in recognition of the firm's history of investment in and revitalization of America's urban centers, its growing dedication to sensitive planning and sustainable development and its vital role in creating affordable housing.

Forest City Enterprises - developer of Denver's Stapleton - will accept the award on June 1 at a gala in the museum's historic Great Hall in Washington, D.C. More than 1,000 cultural, corporate, political and building industry leaders are expected to attend.

STOPP Task Force Wins AIA National Award

The AIA Denver STOPP Task Force was honored with a 2005 National Component Excellence Award from The American Institute of Architects.

The task force was organized to look at ways to streamline Denver's permitting process and development review process. After publishing its 2003 report citing major deficiencies in the current system, the committee has been regularly meeting with city planners to inform them about changes that need to be made, evaluate proposed policy changes and review the status of changes as they are instituted.

The report - "Denver's Development Review Process: Can It Be Fixed?" - has been adopted by AIA as a national model for cities examining their own building permitting process.

A copy is available from the AIA Colorado Web site at www.aiacolorado.org.

RTD, HCC Reach Agreement on FasTracks

The Regional Transportation District and Hispanic Contractors of Colorado signed a memorandum of understanding in March that will become part of the contract documents for the FasTracks project.

As a recipient of Federal Transit Administration grant funds, RTD maintains a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program that complies with FTA requirements.

The agreement outlines joint efforts that RTD and HCC will make to ensure maximum FasTracks participation by HCC, members of the DBE/SBE community-at-large and economically disadvantaged businesses in the district. It includes all programs, projects and planning efforts undertaken by RTD in planning and constructing the agency's fixed-guideway transit improvements.

ABC Natl. Honors Local Projects

Associated Builders and Contractors recognized America's top 2004 construction projects at its Excellence in Construction awards ceremony during the 2005 national convention in Orlando.

The 2004 National Eagle Award winners from the Rocky Mountain Chapter were:

• Renovation - $10-$99 million: Minoru Yasui Plaza Renovation, Denver. Pinkard Construction Co., contractor; city and county of Denver, client-owner; ACLP Architecture, architect/engineer.
• Electrical-Commercial - $2-$10 million: The Beauvallon, Denver. Greiner Electric, contractor; BCN Development, client-owner; Martin Design/Alber Engineering, architect/engineer.
• Mechanical - Projects over $10 million: Metro Wastewater Reclamation District PAR795 High-Solids Centrifuges and Cake Storage Improvements, Commerce City. Western Summit Constructors Inc., contractor; Metro Wastewater Reclamation District, client-owner; Black & Veatch Corp., architect/engineer.
• Local National Merit Award winners were:
• Renovation - Under $2 Million: Grand Valley Catholic Outreach, Grand Junction, Shaw Construction, contractor; Grand Valley Catholic Outreach, client-owner; Chamberlin Architects, architect/engineer.
• Interior Contractor: Edna Rizley Griffin Concert Hall, Fort Collins, Sprehe Interior Construction Inc., contractor; Colorado State University, client-owner; SlaterPaull Architects, architect/engineer.

ABC also recognized Roche Constructors Inc. of Greeley in the SIC 15-General Construction category.

Stapleton Wins 2005 BALA for Smart Growth

Stapleton - the nation's largest urban infill redevelopment - has received a Best in American Living Award for Best Smart Growth Community with more than 150 homes.

Sponsored by the National Association of Homebuilders, BALA honors design quality and marketplace success.

Stapleton was cited for protecting and providing access to the natural environment, for compact, mixed-use planning and for creating a walkable setting with access to jobs, schools, parks and transit.

BALA also cited NuWest Custom Homes, a builder in Stapleton's Urban Estate Home program, for "Best One-of-a-Kind Spec Home up to 4,000 Sq Ft" for its Middleton House designed by Casey + Godden Architects and Payne Interiors.

AGC Announces Craft Program Winners

The Associated General Contractors of America named Colorado's Western Summit Contractors Inc. and AGC of Mississippi as the winners of its 2004 National Construction Craft Program Award, presented during AGC's 86th annual convention in Las Vegas.

Western Summit Constructors was chosen because of its in-house training program, featuring the newly implemented Foreman Academy, a career development program designed to develop a strong base of future leaders.

Established by the Workforce Development Committee, the award acknowledges unique approaches to craft training. The annual award, sponsored by AGC for more than 20 years, consists of a commemorative plaque and a monetary prize.

Two Colorado companies have also won AGC safety awards. Flatiron Constructors of Longmont and United Companies in Grand Junction - both members of the Colorado Contractors Association - were awarded the AGC of America's Willis Construction Safety Excellence Awards.

The awards are presented to the safest contractors, determined by each company's commitment and approach to safety and health as well as their statistical results for the year.

Flatiron Constructors received a first place Construction Safety Excellence Award in the Highway Division with more than one million work hours. United Companies was given a second place Construction Safety Excellence Award in the Highway Division with 300,000-700,000 work hours.

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