Southeast Construction's Best of 2004

by Scott Judy

The magazine presents the winners of its fourth annual "Best Of" competition, honoring excellence in construction and design within the four-state region of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

Southeast Construction presents its Best of 2004 awards this month. This is the magazine's effort to provide a look at the "best" projects completed during 2004.

This is our fourth annual "Best Of" competition. As we have done in the past, the magazine first solicited entries from contractors, designers and other firms from throughout the four-state area for the projects they thought merited consideration for a "Best Of" award.

This year, 40 construction or design firms submitted a total of 70 project entries, spanning 14 separate categories. These categories included: Private Building, Public Building, Multiresidential, Retail, Hospitality, K-12 Public Schools, Educational, Concrete, Private Design, Public Design, Transportation Building, Transportation Infrastructure, Civil/Utilities and Renovation/Restoration.

After the entry deadline, an independent group of judges was selected. None of the judges chosen was employed by firms that had entries for the competition, which meant each could provide an unbiased opinion of the submissions. If it was discovered that the judges had any connection to a submitted project, they were asked to abstain from voting.

Representing various segments of the Southeast's construction industry, the group gathered Sept. 21 at the magazine's offices in Orlando. The group of judges included:

• Bruce Kershner, executive vice president of the Underground Utility Contractors of Florida and the Mid Florida Utilities & Transportation Contractors Association, both in Longwood.
  
• Tom Haisch, senior operations manager and resident manager for Martin K. Eby Construction Co., Maitland.
  
• Ken Cristol, owner and president of Cristol Marketing Co., Longwood.
  
• James Moore, project architect with SchenkelShultz Architecture, Orlando.
  
• Willson S. McBurney, program manager for planning and landscape architecture, PBS&J, Orlando.

The panel was directed to rate the project entries on the following criteria:

• Solutions to construction or design challenges
  
• Project management
• Construction innovation
  
• Client service
  
• Safety

As long as there was a minimum of three entries in a category, the highest-scoring entry in a category would win the "Best Of" award for that group. Based on that criteria, 11 projects qualified for these major awards.

A project entry could also win an "Award of Excellence" or, below that, an "Award of Merit." This year, four entries scored high enough to win an Award of Excellence, while 25 entries earned scores for an Award of Merit.

In addition to rating each project entry, as has been done in previous years, the judges were also asked to select the best overall project for the "Judges' Award" in both the construction and design fields.