Award-Winning Solutions
Along with our clients UNC, NC State University, Newland Communities and Esri, McKim & Creed has won four 2017 Engineering Excellence awards from the American Council of Engineering Companies of North Carolina. The company also received the Grand Conceptor Award, which is presented for the single-most outstanding project among all the categories.
“We are honored to work with clients that allow us the creativity and flexibility to design innovative, workable solutions that save energy, time and money. That is what creates award-winning work,” said John T. Lucey, Jr., PE, president and chief executive officer of McKim & Creed.
The Grand Conceptor Award was presented for a proof of concept (POC) completed by McKim & Creed and Esri, the world’s largest geographical information systems (GIS) company, at Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. The purpose was to determine if unmanned aerial system technology (UAS, also known as drones) can provide coastal communities with a faster, more cost-effective way to produce beach monitoring surveys. These surveys are typically conducted twice a year—before and after hurricane season—and are used to 1) analyze a beach’s performance in terms of erosion and accretion, 2) plan and predict maintenance and renourishment activities and 3) secure emergency funding for restoration. The POC showed that municipalities can save up to 60% in time and money by using UAS for data collection. McKim & Creed and Esri also won an Honorable Mention from the National ACEC Engineering Excellence awards competition.
In the Building/Technologies Systems category, McKim & Creed and NC State University won an Honors Award for its work on the Close-King Indoor Practice Facility at North Carolina State University. The 90,000-SF, 75-ft-tall, $14-million, LEED-certified facility enables Wolfpack football, baseball, soccer and track teams to practice regardless of weather conditions in a well-appointed, state-of-the-art facility. Michael Lipitz, NC State deputy athletic director, internal operations, calls the facility “a crowning achievement” and “the next step toward building a championship-caliber program that we all know is possible for NC State and the Wolfpack Nation.”
Along with Newland Communities, McKim & Creed was presented with an Honors Award award in the Transportation category for the three-mile River Road Realignment in Wilmington, North Carolina. The project restores and reconnects wetlands and coastal marsh, protects unique sand ridges, provides a multiuse trail and wildlife corridor, opens access to waterfront property on the Cape Fear River, and offers a safer roadway through dual-lane roundabouts. The $10-million project was completed at no cost to taxpayers and is part of Wilmington’s new RiverLights community.
An Honors Award for engineering excellence in the Energy category went to McKim & Creed and UNC for an airflow reduction and recommissioning project at UNC Chapel Hill’s Genetic Medicine Research Building. In its first year, the project has saved $250,000 in energy costs, which far exceeds the anticipated savings of approximately $37,000. The project has resulted in a payback of less than three years for UNC.
Representatives from local, state and federal agencies, along with environmental groups, attended the Wrightsville Beach proof of concept, which compared UAS with conventional surveying and terrestrial LiDAR.
The 90,000-SF, 75-ft-tall, $14-million, LEED-certified Close-King Indoor Practice Facility at NC State University enables Wolfpack football, baseball, soccer and track teams to practice regardless of weather conditions in a well-appointed, state-of-the-art facility.
Realigning three miles of River Road in Wilmington, North Carolina restored and reconnected wetlands and coastal marsh, protected unique sand ridges, provided a multiuse trail and wildlife corridor, opened access to waterfront property on the Cape Fear River, and offered a safer roadway through dual-lane roundabouts.
Minimum airflow rates in the UNC Chapel Hill Genetic Building lab areas were reduced to six air changes per hour (ACH), resulting in $250,000 in energy savings over the first year post completion.