ST. LOUIS — The Associated General Contractors (AGC) of Missouri honored seven IBEW/NECA projects in its annual AGC Keystone Awards. The projects spanned local and regional healthcare, higher education, waste water treatment and energy production facilities. Since 1999, more than 80 IBEW/NECA projects have been honored in the AGC Keystone Awards.

IBEW/NECA contractor Guarantee Electrical Co. earned an AGC Keystone Award for its work on the Mercy Joplin Replacement Hospital for Mercy Health Systems. Four of its projects were also named finalists, including a first-ever sweep of a broad category for different types of specialty contractors. Guarantee was also named Electrical Subcontractor of the Year. PayneCrest, another IBEW/NECA contractor, was honored for two finalists.

The AGC Keystone Awards salute building excellence. In honoring the five Guarantee projects, the AGC cited the following:

• Mercy Joplin Replacement Hospital -- As the electrical design-build partner on Mercy’s integrated project delivery team, Guarantee’s biggest challenges in constructing Mercy’s 900,000 SF Joplin replacement facility involved issues of scale and schedule in providing the electrical design and communications systems with fail-safe capacity to support Mercy Health System’s 21st Century menu of medical-surgical, emergency and critical care services to the Joplin Community.
• Southern Illinois University (SIU) — Edwardsville Electrical Infrastructure Upgrade -- The massive replacement of 132,000 feet of electrical cabling throughout the SIU-Edwardsville campus challenged GECO to complete huge portions of the work in advance and then coordinate manageable transitions to the new equipment so as to minimize the impact of multiple outages on year-round university operations by performing all final testing and cutovers during the brief university vacation periods.

• Women’s Health Services 2^nd Floor Renovation for Mercy Health Systems — Guarantee served as the lead electrical project partner in constructing SSM Health St. Mary’s 366,000 SF replacement hospital and adjacent 66,000 SF medical office building in Jefferson City. Among the principal challenges it overcame involved training and leading a team of inexperienced, outstate and local Mid-Missouri subcontractors in delivering SSM Health’s advanced electrical and communications systems under a progressive, integrated delivery agreement.
• Cape Girardeau Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) --The biggest challenges faced by Guarantee in constructing the Cape WWTP were record snows in the winter of 2013-14 followed by extremely heavy spring rains in Southeast Missouri which radically compressed schedules. Nevertheless, Guarantee’s electrical team installed an array of new wastewater technologies that now handle 11 million gallons per day with a peak capacity of 50 million gallons.
• Women’s Health Services 2^nd Floor Renovation for Mercy Health Systems -- The Mercy Hospital Women’s Health Services 2nd Floor Renovation project proved to be a particularly successful example of Mercy’s approach to following “lean” practices, encouraging a combination of design with constructability and value-engineering. The net result: a complex hospital project that came in a month ahead of schedule and some $400,000 under budget.

In the PayneCrest projects honored, the AGC cited the following:

• Shriners Hospitals for Children -- PayneCrest delivered all electrical and communication needs for Shriners Hospital for Children, overcoming challenges with the facility’s unusual geometric design and its site limitations in a congested urban area. PayneCrest led the project’s successful diversity achievements. PayneCrest’s on-site engineering became the hub for all MEP installations and it optimized the productivity of 32,000 manhours without a recordable injury.
• O’Fallon Renewable Energy Center (OREC) — The O’Fallon Renewable Energy Center (OREC) in O’Fallon, Mo is Ameren Missouri’s first investment ever in solar energy production. PayneCrest safely and efficiently delivered reliable power to Ameren’s customers and made a lasting impact on critical workforce development in renewable energy. PayneCrest made engineering refinements ensuring the 22-acre, 18,000 solar panel facility achieved its desired 5.7 megawatts of energy production.

The Nov. 12, 2015 AGC Keystone Awards celebration was held at the River City Casino & Hotel in St. Louis.