Carolinas AGC Announces 2006 Pinnacle Award Winners

The Carolinas Associated General Contractors announced the winners of its 2006 Pinnacle Awards for outstanding achievement in the Carolinas commercial construction industry, as follows:

• Best General Contractor – Hightower Construction Co., Charleston, S. C.
Hightower is a 50-year-old firm with about 110 employees; annual revenue approximately $100 million. Judges cited its safety program, top subcontractor and top owner references. Specialty: design/build, government, industrial, commercial and restoration/renovation.

• Best Subcontractor/Specialty Contractor – Salem Electric Co., Winston-Salem, N. C.
Salem Electric is a 60-year-old family firm with about 300 employees. Judges cited staff stability, community involvement and partnership attitude with both customers and second-tier subcontractors and suppliers. Specialty: commercial, industrial and healthcare work.

• Best Supplier/Service Company – Chandler Concrete Co., Burlington, N. C.
Chandler produces more than 1,000,000 cu yds of ready-mixed concrete annually. The family-owned firm has more than 550 employees in three states. Judges cited its safety emphasis and resulting safety performance, and quality of personnel.

• Best Highway-Heavy Project (two awards given) – Hwy. 98 Bypass at Wake Forest, Wake Forest, N. C. Contractor: S.T. Wooten Corporation, Wilson, N. C.
This bypass at US 1 involved widening, drainage, grading, paving, signals, structures and culverts, and construction of a new four-lane divided facility. In addition, construction of a new single point urban interchange was required, including a two-span bridge.
 
• Interchange of I-26 & Ashley Phosphate Road, Charleston, S. C. Contractor: Banks Construction Co. Inc., Charleston, S. C.
This three-year project involved: removing and replacing two bridges – the Ashley Phosphate Road bridge over I-26 and the US 52 flyover bridge – and widening I-26; plus adding two lanes to Ashley Phosphate Road.

 • Best Utility Project – Columbia Hydroelectric Facility Fish Passage, Columbia, S. C. Contractor: Thalle Construction Co., Hillsborough, N. C.
For more than 100 years a dam at Columbia’s Broad River has blocked the path of migratory fish. Thalle constructed a custom “ladder” to allow these fish to overcome the dam and move upstream, plus a downstream fish passage structure to allow migrating fish to return to the ocean.

• Best Building Project (two awards given) – Imperial Centre for the Arts & Sciences, Rocky Mount, N. C. Contractor: Barnhill Contracting Co., Tarboro, N. C.
This two-year project rehabilitated a tobacco warehouse dormant for 50 years into a museum and arts center, while meeting historic restoration standards specified by the U. S. Department of the Interior and National Parks Service. 

• North Carolina Museum of Life & Science-Bioquest Two, Durham, N. C. Contractor: New Atlantic Contracting, Winston-Salem, N. C.
This project expanded the museum into an adjacent rock quarry abandoned in the 1920s involving habitats for bears and wolves with man-made rock and water features, an inhabited wetland area, manmade sailboat pond, animal holding facilities, two visitor centers and a boardwalk descending a 26-ft cliff.

• Build with the Best (to an individual outside the construction industry contributing to overall economic welfare of the Carolinas) – Len Sanderson, state highway administrator (retired), N. C. Department of Transportation.

Winners were selected by a judging panel representing a cross-section of the Carolinas AGC membership.

Wohl to Lead ULI Housing Working Group

Michael D. Wohl, founding partner of Pinnacle Housing Group, will chair the South Florida working group of a new Urban Land Institute  initiative aimed at increasing the supply of moderately priced homes in South Florida.

In announcing Wohl’s appointment, land use attorney Debbie M. Orshefsky, chair of the ULI Southeast Florida/Caribbean District Council and a shareholder in Greenberg Traurig’s Fort Lauderdale office, said ULI is striving to build more public-private sector partnerships aimed at increasing the production of affordable workforce and mixed-income housing.

A nonprofit nationwide organization, ULI recently took on a new role with the creation of the ULI Terwilliger Center for Workforce Housing, which will support the development of affordable to moderate-income housing in three initial markets: South Florida, Atlanta and Washington, D.C.

Wohl, a veteran Miami developer whose company focuses on affordable and workforce multifamily housing, as well as mixed-use development, says the South Florida ULI working group began meeting in March and includes experts from all relevant housing disciplines.

Wohl adds that the ULI housing working group will play a proactive regional role, facilitating the development of workforce housing in three ways:

• Educating local governments and major employers about effective workforce housing solutions.
• Advising developers and municipalities on the steps necessary to create workforce housing, from zoning and land use through entitlements and incentives.
• Identifying financing sources, such as banks and equity funds, interested in financing workforce housing projects.

ULI’s seven-county South Florida/Caribbean District Council stretches from the Florida Keys through Vero Beach and includes Puerto Rico.  Wohl indicated the Terwilliger Center initiative’s South Florida working group will first concentrate efforts in Miami/Dade through Palm Beach counties, later expanding throughout the District Council area.

ARTBA President Says Strategy to Move Freight is Paramount

The development of a national strategy to improve the efficient movement of freight is critical to future U.S. economic productivity and should be a top priority for federal policymakers, says American Road & Transportation Builders Association President Pete Ruane.

Ruane spoke in February at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s “Moving Enterprise: Transportation & the Global Economy” conference, held in Washington, D.C.

Ruane cited a Federal Highway Administration report showing that freight bottlenecks are causing trucks more than 243 million hours of delay annually, at a cost of nearly $8 billion. 

“If the U.S. economy grows at a conservative annual rate of 2.5 to 3 percent over the next 20 years, domestic freight tonnage will almost double and the volume of freight moving through the largest international gateways may triple or quadruple,” the FHWA report says. “Without new strategies to increase capacity, congestion at freight bottlenecks on highways may impose an unacceptably high cost on the nation’s economy.”

In his remarks, Ruane outlined a plan approved by the ARTBA Board of Directors in September 2006 that is aimed at addressing the nation’s future surface transportation needs. 

Kubota Adds Manufacturing Capacity at Georgia Plant

Kubota Corp. is expanding its Kubota Manufacturing of America plant in Gainesville, Ga., and officially opens an additional production line, with a high-tech painting system utilized in the production of Kubota’s RTV utility vehicles.

“Today’s reopening of our new Building One production line is the culmination of planned growth for Kubota manufacturing space here in Georgia, representing a $20 million investment in future production capabilities for KMA,” says Tim Yoshii, president, KMA.

Dignitaries from Kubota Corp. of Osaka, Japan, and its affiliates in North America - Kubota Tractor Corp., Kubota Industrial Equipment, Kubota Engine of America, Kubota Canada and Kubota Credit Corp. - gathered to mark the occasion with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Gainesville, Ga., KMA plant.

KMA recently re-engineered the 212,000-sq-ft KMA plant, after moving part of the production facility work to newly opened affiliate Kubota Industrial Equipment in nearby Jackson County, Ga., during a planned increase in total manufacturing capabilities in North America for Kubota.

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