Southeast Construction's Best of 2005

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

By Scott Judy

Southeast Construction presents its fifth annual Best of 2005 awards this month to honor the "best" projects completed this year.

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, 55 construction or design entities submitted a total of 98 project entries, spanning 18 separate categories. These categories included: Private Building, Public Building, Multiresidential, Cultural/Entertainment, Retail, K-12 Schools, University/College, Airports, Health Care, Transportation Building, Transportation, Industrial, Concrete, Private Design, Public Design, Civil/Utilities, Specialty Trades and Transportation Engineering.

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.

Representing various segments of the Southeast's construction industry, the group gathered Sept. 20 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.
  
• Ken Cristol, owner and president of Cristol Marketing Co., Longwood.
  
• Gary Campbell, general manager of Crane Rental of Orlando; and,
  
• Ted Garrison, consultant and president of Ted Garrison Associates.

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 those criteria, 15 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, nine entries scored high enough to win an Award of Excellence, while 22 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.