Four area contractors were among the winners in the American Concrete Pavement Association's (ACPA) 17th Annual "Excellence in Concrete Pavement" awards.
Gold- and Silver-level winners for the Excellence in Concrete Pavement Awards were selected from more than 60 nationwide entries by a panel of industry experts and judged on the basis of overall pavement smoothness, quality-control measures, project complexity, and innovative construction solutions. Projects honored were completed in 2005.
Cedar Valley Corp., of Waterloo, Iowa, brought home the area's only Gold-level award and also won a Silver award. Other area contractors to win Silver awards were APAC, Koss Construction Company and Fred Weber Inc./Millstone Bangert, Inc.
Cedar Valley won its Gold Award in the Reliever and General Aviation category.
The Blair Municipal Airport planned to build a new runway, ramp and taxiways, but also wanted to achieve continuous use of the existing runway and taxiways with minimal disruption from construction activities.
Due to the intertwined nature of the new and existing facilities, a multistaged construction approach was envisioned to maintain continuous aircraft movement. Unfortunately, that would have required many different taxi patterns that would have created confusion and raised safety issues. Three displaced thresholds were called for throughout various stages of construction, which presented additional safety issues.
During the pre-construction meeting and the first weekly job progress meetings, Cedar Valley representatives presented a plan to combine stages to both enhance safety and decrease construction duration.
As construction progressed, the changes enabled a reduction of both the duration and complexity of the project. The revised design of the project lent itself to ensuring high standards of quality. The runway length of 4,200 feet enabled no headers and was poured in a record four days, averaging 2,800 cubic yards per day. No corrective grinding was required, and it achieved a smoothness of 0.4 inches per mile.
Cedar Valley won a Silver award in the Municipal Streets and Intersections (less than 30,000 square yards) category for its work on the reconstruction of NW 100th Street in Clive, Iowa.
Other area Silver award winners are as follows.
APAC was a Silver award winner in the Urban Arterials and Collectors category for its work on the reconstruction of Nall Avenue in Overland Park and Leawood, Kan.
Koss Construction Company was a Silver award co-winner in the Divided Highways (Rural) category for its work on an Interstate 35 Beto Junction project in Coffey and Osage Counties in Kansas.
Fred Weber Inc./Millstone Bangert, Inc. were a Silver award co-winner in the Commercial Service and Military Airports category for their construction of Runway 11–29 at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport in St. Louis, Mo.
