The McKalla Station Design-Build project in North Austin, Texas, provided contractor Stacy Witbeck with challenging conditions and tight spaces throughout construction.
Photo by Giles Dalrymple, courtesy of Stacy Witbeck.
In August, ENR Texas & Louisiana announced this year’s category winners for its annual Best Projects competition, recognizing the best in design and construction in the states of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Oklahoma. Most recently, we also announced the three finalists for this year’s Project of the Year award.
And one of the previously announced winners has now won one of the highest honors in ENR Texas and Louisiana’s annual Best Projects program: the Safety Excellence Award. This year’s winner was the McKalla Station Design-Build project in North Austin, Texas, which also won an Award of Merit in the Airport/Transit category, as previously announced.
Submitted by contractor Stacy Witbeck, the project was the unanimous choice of this year’s safety judges, who included: Kim Mason, senior director of safety services for the Houston AGC; and Brandon Smith, director of safety and workforce development for the Greater Baton Rouge Industry Alliance.
As noted in Stacy Witbeck’s Best Projects entry, McKalla Station combines Austin’s commuter rail system with the existing freight rail line and accommodates a wide variety of commuters, including pedestrian, rail, bus passengers and cyclists.
Our security judges chose to honor another project for its security efforts, awarding an Award of Merit to the AMN Healthcare IT project in Dallas, presented by Rogers-O’Brien.
These projects, along with all already announced winning project teams, will be recognized in Houston at a luncheon on December 6 at the Westin Galleria Houston, where the selected Project of the Year will be revealed. For more information and to register to attend the event, click here.