ST. LOUIS – This year’s Associated General Contractors (AGC) of Missouri Keystone Awards features four Electrical Connection member projects competing for top honors in construction excellence.  The projects include three by Guarantee Electrical Co. and one by PayneCrest Electric, Inc.  Both electrical contractors are members of the St. Louis Chapter of the National Electrical Contractor Association (NECA), which partners with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1 to form the Electrical Connection.

“As always, the projects competing for the AGC Keystone Awards reflect the enormous complexities of work that our NECA contractors are called upon to deliver,” noted Doug Martin, executive vice president, St. Louis Chapter NECA.  “They require the very best in thoughtful engineering, planning and precision construction management to meet owner expectations.”

Guarantee projects vying for the AGC Keystone Awards include:

·         MEMC Global Wafers SOI Building Expansion Project

In January 2019 Guarantee Electrical Company was engaged to provide electrical construction services in support of MEMC Global’s addition to its existing clean-room SOI production building, joining a team consisting of L. Keeley Construction Co. and Bilfinger Industrial Services.  The assignment is a continuation of over a decade in which Guarantee provides electrical and communications support services to MEMC’s Level 1 Cleanroom facilities and manufacturing processes, especially with respect to providing reliable electrical power and high-speed data communications.

 ·         SSM Health Saint Louis University Replacement Hospital

Guarantee Electrical Company was engaged to join the team led by Alberici Corporation in the construction of St. Louis University’s new eleven-story, 600,000 square-foot replacement hospital.  Guarantee’s role as the electrical and communications systems contractor was to assure that the university hospital and its medical campus infrastructure are fully supplied with the power and communications systems to continue their two-century-old mission of meeting the St. Louis community’s healthcare and medical educational requirements.

·         Powering the COVID Response Effort

During the last week of March, 2020, Guarantee Electrical Company joined General Contractor, Tarlton Corporation and the US Army Corps of Engineers to build out the first alternative healthcare facility conversion in Missouri in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Concurrently, Guarantee was tasked with outfitting temporary triage units and mobile testing stations at multiple area healthcare facilities.

The PayneCrest project competing for an AGC Keystone award is the City Foundry STL, the transformation by Steve Smith and Lawrence Group of the historic, former Century Electric Co. foundry complex in Midtown.  The biggest challenge for the PayneCrest team while working on the City Foundry STL project was creating a new electrical infrastructure from an existing building, while restoring the historical features of the space. Since the 15–acre lot wasn’t setup for its current use PayneCrest had to collaborate with its team and partners to develop solutions tailored for installations. Learn more about City Foundry at www.cityfoundrystl.com.

“Our IBEW workforce is proud to have worked with our NECA partners on these projects,” said Frank Jacobs, IBEW Local 1 business manager.  “When you dig deep into the challenging nature of the assignments, the value of combining proficient management skills by NECA contractors with IBEW’s skilled and safe workforce becomes clear.”

Since 1997, when the AGC Keystone Awards competition was launched, more than 100 NECA contractor projects have been honored.  The prestigious construction awards program salutes projects for safety, proficiency in overcoming challenges and the quality of delivery, including maintaining budget and schedule.

“Our members’ success in this prestigious awards program is evidence of their continuous ability to adapt to our nation’s needs in electrical and communications installations,” said Jim Curran, executive vice president, Electrical Connection.  “This is especially true in an era when disruptive technologies are changing our world so rapidly, requiring ever greater innovation on the part of our NECA contractors and IBEW workforce.”

Winners of the 2020 Keystone Awards will be announced at a to-be-determined celebration event later this year.

For more information, visit www.agcmo.org.