ST. LOUIS — IBEW/NECA contractor prowess in delivering enormously complex projects was honored with several awards in the 2016 Associated General Contractors (AGC) of Missouri AGC Keystone Awards. The IBEW/NECA contractors swept the Mid-America Class for subcontracting work in which they competed. The winners included PayneCrest Electric, Inc. for its work on the Flint Creek Power Plant in Gentry, Ark. and Guarantee Electric, which earned two awards for their work on the William H. Danforth Wing expanding the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and the Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD), Flood Mitigation Project. Guarantee was also named 2016 specialty contractor of the year for electrical. The awards were presented at the AGC’s annual construction gala on Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016 at the River City Casino & Hotel in St. Louis.

PayneCrest Electric, Inc.’s foresight and ingenuity was saluted for its environmental retrofit of the Flint Creek plant — a project that was also spotlighted in Electric TV. American Electric Power Corp. Southwestern Electric Power Co. (AEP SWEPCO) and Arkansas Electric Corp. (AECC) relied on PayneCrest to optimize a $408 million retrofit to the 528-megawatt, coal-fueled Flint Creek Power Plant to comply with new stringent U.S. environmental regulations. PayneCrest was also required to elevate the skills of the local workforce to serve Arkansas’ future power needs. In all, PayneCrest installed more than 1.3 million feet of cable, 10,000 feet of cable tray, 80,000 feet of conduit, and 1,200 light fixtures. The two-year-long project was completed on time and within budget with no injuries in 205,000 manhours on the job.

Guarantee’s work on the 79,000-square-foot William H. Danforth Wing to expand the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center emphasized a strategy of building flexibility into the capacity of the space to support 21st Century plant science research. The project entailed building in four levels, three of which contain new state-of-the-technology plant science laboratories including 34 controlled environment growth chambers and collaboration spaces in open-office configurations. The new wing brings expanded computing and imaging capabilities to support the center’s expanding team of research scientists.

Guarantee’s work for MSD came in response to a devastating deluge of winter rain closing out December 2015 that flooded and shutdown wastewater treatment plants in Valley Park and Fenton, Mo. For the Fenton plant, the Guarantee team had to perform an in-depth diagnostic of every piece of equipment and traced and tested wiring throughout the plant, most of it submerged under water. Guarantee and its partners designed and constructed a replacement scheme for the Fenton plant, building an entirely new electrical infrastructure throughout the facility. It diligently advanced a 12-week schedule to meet an environmental compliance deadline requiring restoration of wastewater decontamination operations by April 1, 2016.

In all IBEW/NECA contractors placed seven projects as finalists in the 2016 AGC Keystone Awards including one project from Bell Electrical Contractors, four projects from Guarantee and two projects from PayneCrest.

Since 1999, more than 90 IBEW/NECA projects have been honored in the AGC Keystone Awards. All of the 2016 honorees are members of the Electrical Connection, a partnership of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1 and the St. Louis Chapter, National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA).

The AGC Keystone Awards salute building excellence in a number of categories. The finalists, spanning 10 categories, represent the highest level of professionalism, craftsmanship and quality in construction by Missouri’s general and specialty contractors.