“Jerry Jones was driven to create the ultimate game-day experience for fans at Cowboys Stadium,” said Jack Hill, Cowboys Stadium General Manager.  “With his vision, he challenged everyone – architects, engineers, builders and Mitsubishi Electronics – to create something revolutionary in stadium design. We are extremely proud of this global recognition.”

“This exceptional scoreboard is an example of the Dallas Cowboys owner, Jerry Jones’ revolutionary approach to the stadium business and it is an honor to accept this award on behalf of him, his family and the Dallas Cowboys organization,” said Bill Bury, director of sports venues at Manhattan Construction Co.

Manhattan Construction Co. built the $1.2 billion, 80-seat Cowboys Stadium which is home to the National Football League’s Dallas Cowboys and the NCAA’s AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic. The stadium has also been selected to host Super Bowl XLV in 2011.

Bury, who was directly involved with the right-sizing, manufacturer selection and installation of the scoreboard, said the Cowboys Stadium video boards have revolutionized the game day experience. With two of the world’s largest native HD boards hung above the field, every fan enjoys the combination of the luxury one would get at home with the larger-than-life action and the excitement of the live game day experience, he said.

At 70’ tall and 160’ wide, the board hangs in the center of the stadium and has over 25 million LEDs and the capability to show HD quality and 3D images, he said. The entire structure can be lowered to 25 feet above the field, or raised to the NFL required height of 90 feet above the field.

“Created this year to recognize the leading venues and the people behind them, the awards received a remarkable 1,000 nominations so winners should be very proud of their achievements”, commented Ian Nuttall, co-founder of TheStadiumBusiness.com. “An impressive calibre of entries testified to the incredibly high standards being attained right across the industry.”

Nominations from around the world were whittled down to a shortlist judged by an independent panel of industry figures, including:

• Michael Bolingbroke, COO, Manchester United Football Club
• Paul Fletcher, Chief Executive, Burnley FC
• Paul Latham, COO International Music, Live Nation Entertainment
• Rory Sheridan, Head of Sponsorship, Guinness
• Erik Stover, General Manager, Red Bull New York soccer team

Finalists for the “Creativity” award were:

• Museo River at River Plate FC, Argentina
• Cowboys Stadium HD Video Board, Texas, USA
• Emirates Stadium banner-wrapping, London
• Sunderland’s Stadium of Light 2009 events calendar, UK
• Ricoh Arena’s ticket marketing offers, UK

“Guinness is delighted to support the Stadium Business Awards 2010 and to play our part in recognising the outstanding achievements of sports venues around the world,” commented Rory Sheridan, Sponsorship Manager of Guinness at Diageo Ireland. “As a major sports sponsor globally, Guinness recognises that the quality, safety and entertainment value of the venues in which our sponsorships are hosted form a vital ingredient to the overall success of the sponsorship experience for all involved.”

About Cowboys Stadium
Cowboys Stadium is the largest, most technologically advanced entertainment venue in the world.  Designed by HKS and built by Manhattan Construction, the $1.2 billion stadium features two monumental arches, the world’s largest HDTV video board, an expansive retractable roof and the largest retractable end zone doors in the world.  Features of the stadium include seating for 80,000 and expandable to 100,000, over 300 luxury suites, club seating on multiple levels and the Dallas Cowboys Pro Shop, open to the public year round.  In addition to being the new home of the Dallas Cowboys and the AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic, the stadium will host Super Bowl XLV in 2011 and the 2014 NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four as well as high school and college football, concerts and special events.  In February of 2011, the stadium hosted the NBA All Star game in front of a world record 108,000 fans. For more information, go to http://stadium.dallascowboys.com.

About Manhattan Construction Company
Founded in 1896, Manhattan Construction Co. is ranked among the top five sports facility builders in the nation by Engineering News-Record. Manhattan builds projects throughout the Southwest and East regions of the United States, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, and provides pre-construction, construction management, general building, and design/build services. http://www.manhattanconstructiongroup.com/manhattan-construction

About the Stadium Business Awards 2010 in association with Guinness
Held for the first time this year, the Stadium Business Awards in association with Guinness, were created as a platform to showcase innovation, professionalism and best practice within the stadium industry. All aspects of the international stadium and sports venue sector were covered. The awards are organised by Xperiology, creators of the Stadium Business Summit conference and suppliers of stadium management training, consultancy and advisory services to the sports and entertainment sector.

For more information, please visit: www.stadiumbusinessawards.com
or www.stadiumbusinesssummit.com

The Naples Botanical Garden will be a featured Gold Medal Winner on the Building of America website (www.BuildingofAmerica.com), which brings industry leaders and decision makers together with consultants, financial resources, architectural firms, program and project managers and others from within the construction and design industry. The Building of America Network showcases the most innovative, unique and challenging new projects that are particularly noteworthy or give back to their respective communities.

Naples-based Kraft Construction was the general contractor for Naples Botanical Garden, the second largest developed botanical garden in the state, with 60 of the 160 total acres developed. Kraft completed Phase I last October and the first three gardens – the Children’s Garden, the Brazilian Garden and the Caribbean Garden – were opened to the public in November 2009.

According to Kraft’s Project Manager Steven DeLong, one of the unique features of the Naples Botanical Garden is that the company used the site’s actual land to construct the project; Kraft excavated and constructed two new lakes and utilized the fill from those lakes in the specialty gardens. Trees that were cleared were converted to mulch and utilized throughout the project. The irrigation system is fed from an existing lake on the property to provide water for the specialty gardens and common area landscaping. The lake is replenished by a recharge well and site and storm drainage.

Kraft worked with well-known architects, using conceptual drawings to create the garden’s design while keeping the project’s schedule and budget intact. “We were able to bring the architects’ vision from Brazil and the Caribbean to the site,” said DeLong. “For instance, the architect’s vision for the concrete in the Brazilian Garden was that it appeared to be ‘taken over and eaten by the jungle.’ We sandblasted the concrete walls and walks to give it that old world feeling.”

Within the Botanical Garden, Kraft also constructed the Children’s Garden specifically for kids only. The garden provides children the ability to see how the environment operates around us. The garden is interactive, allowing children to splash and play in water, observe and learn about butterflies, climb a rope bridge to a treehouse and climb up in a fire tower to view a sea of saw grass. 

DeLong says Kraft has begun construction of the second phase, which is expected to be completed in November 2010 and will include a water lily pond, Asian Garden and Florida Garden.

Brian Holley, executive director of Naples Botanical Garden, said the Asian Garden will be divided into various botanical zones: commercial crops, ornamentals, bamboos, water plants and outdoor “rooms” of cultural diversity. A Northern Thailand riverside scene, an ancient Japanese terraced sanctuary, a Balinese temple water garden, an East Indonesia megalithic court and a new Asian sculpture garden will all be featured.

The Florida Garden will display the essence of the state’s landscape. The central feature of the garden will be the “great circle,” a circular area reminiscent of the numerous pot lakes one sees when flying over Southwest Florida. A circular planting of sabal palms underplanted with bougainvillea and silver palmetto will form the great circle. Smaller, residential-scale gardens will demonstrate how homeowners can integrate natives into their own properties.

“This project is such a great addition to Collier County culture, and Kraft is proud to be a part of it,” said DeLong. “Not only do the gardens provide the community with an education into plants from around the world, but they also show ways to conserve and give back to the environment by utilizing existing conditions. Plus, the gardens will provide wildlife a place to live for many years to come.” 

DeLong credits the projects subcontractors, without whom the project could not have been constructed. “We decided to make this project a community effort by utilizing multiple trades in the same scope of work,” he explained. The company used three major landscape subcontractors, utilized three different aluminum specialty contractors, two concrete paver companies, two fountain subcontractors and two carpentry subcontractors, all of whom worked well together as a team.

Other consultants involved in the Naples Botanical Garden project include landscape architects Goetz + Stropes Landscape Architects, Inc., Herb Schaal, FASLA; EDAW, Raymond Jungles, Inc., Robert E.Truskowski, Inc. and P. T. Wijaya Tribwana International, as well as architectural firm Lake|Flato Architects Inc. and RhodesDhal, owner’s representative and management services.

Kraft Construction Company Inc., founded in 1968, is a statewide general contractor and construction management firm specializing in commercial, government, educational, medical, hospitality and mixed-use construction. Kraft is part of the Manhattan Construction Group of companies. For more information, visit www.KraftConstruction.com.

“With over two and a half million work hours without a single lost work day incident Manhattan’s program serves as an excellent example of why safety pays,” said Fields. “It is my personal pleasure to be able to share Manhattan’s safety success with other business industries in Oklahoma.”

Oklahoma companies from all industries, not just construction, are eligible to participate in the awards program. This is the second time Manhattan has been honored by the Oklahoma Department of Labor. In 2007, Manhattan received the organization’s Award of Excellence and became the first General Contractor in the history of the program to be presented the honor.

“What makes Manhattan’s safety program successful is that we don’t allow ourselves to relax because of yesterday’s safety success,” said Scott Marsh, safety manager at Manhattan Construction Co. “Safety is a constant alertness and no excuses thing for us. We stress its importance every day and we don’t let up.”

Manhattan is working on three major projects at George Bush Intercontinental Airport. Two projects under construction are the Phase 3 Automated People Mover and the Terminal C Garage Renovation projects, both of which have exceeded S/MDBE participation goals.  The Phase 3 Automated People Mover Project has achieved 26% participation versus an original goal of 25%, while the Terminal C Garage Renovation Project has achieved 42% participation versus an original goal of 23% participation. The Terminal D Renovation project is in the pre-construction phase.

The award was presented to Manhattan during the Houston Airport System’s annual “Runway To Business Opportunities” Networking Fair, which was held May 13th, 2010.

The “2010 Vision Award” was presented to Manhattan for utilizing the greatest number of TEXO member specialty contractors and industry members on a project entered into the Building Awards competition.

The “2010 Build Texas Award” is TEXO’s special recognition of Manhattan and the project team for the construction of Cowboys Stadium.

The APWA Project of the Year Award recognizes the managing agency, the engineer and other team consultants, and the contractor who work together to complete public works projects.  Awards are judged on the following criteria:

• Use of good construction management techniques and completion of the project on schedule
• Safety performance and demonstrated awareness of the need for a good overall safety program during construction
• Community relations through efforts to minimize public inconvenience and precautions to protect the public during construction, and other means of improving relations between the agency and the public
• Demonstrated awareness for the need to protect the environment during construction
• Unusual accomplishments under adverse conditions
• Additional conditions deemed important to the public works agency such as time or money-saving techniques or exceptional quality control, etc.

The Downtown Utility and Streetscape project team outlined the construction techniques, accelerated schedule and safety programs while emphasizing the understanding and protection of the historic elements of our downtown area.  All facets of the community relations program were described including the Fort Myers Redevelopment Agency’s programs to assist the downtown businesses during construction.  The City of Fort Myers combined the utility project with the streetscape project to reduce cost and construction inconvenience to the public. 

Emphasis was given to streetscape’s design challenges while meeting Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements in a historic district.  This was particularly challenging because the new roadway and sidewalk systems employ narrower streets, wider sidewalks and lower street profiles.  One of the most exciting accomplishments of this project is the recovery and “recycling” over 500,000 bricks once covered for decades by asphalt on our existing streets.  Reusing the old bricks was a large and unique undertaking in preserving our historic downtown.  Gaining acceptance from other agencies to use smaller, historic traffic signals throughout downtown adds to the downtown charm and unusual accomplishments of the project.

The success of the Downtown Utility and Streetscape Project earned the City of Fort Myers and the project team the honor of this prestigious award.  The City of Fort Myers Downtown Utility and Streetscape team has been invited to present the project at the 50th Anniversary of the APWA Florida Chapter Annual Meeting in Orlando on May 4th, 2010.

The City of Fort Myers began the Downtown Utility Replacement and Streetscape Improvements Project in late 2005 and completed the project in late 2009.  While this project beautified downtown Fort Myers, more importantly, this was a utility replacement project.  The Downtown Utility Replacement and Streetscape Improvements project replaced all existing water, sewer and storm drain systems in downtown Fort Myers; many dating as far back as the early 1900s.  Once the underground utility replacement work on each street was complete, street beautification elements were constructed including brick-accented sidewalks and crosswalks, streetscape amenities, and landscaping and lighting.  Street furniture such as benches, waste receptacles, and decorative bike racks placed throughout the downtown area complete the street furnishings package.

APWA is an international educational and professional association of public agencies, private sector companies and individuals dedicated to providing high quality public works goods and services. It’s membership consists of public works directors, city engineers, city managers, fleet managers, property and equipment superintendents, utilities managers, community development directors, transportation managers, parks directors, county officials and representatives from the companies that supply products and services to those professionals. The Association provides a forum in which public works professionals can exchange ideas, improve professional competency, increase the performance of their agencies and companies, and bring important public works-related topics to public attention in local, state and federal arenas.

“We are pleased to see that John’s professionalism and experience are recognized by his peers and the Associated General Contractors,” said John Snyder, Manhattan’s Oklahoma division president.  “Jamison has devoted his life to the construction of quality structures and to delivering the best project for every one of our customers.  He is very deserving of the recognition.” added Mr. Snyder.

Jamison is one of a handful of certified Design-Build professionals in the State and is also a certified Professional Estimator. He received his Bachelor of Architectural Engineering from Oklahoma State University in 1967, and served as an officer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers with overseas duty in Korea and continued his service with the Oklahoma Army Guard.

“I am honored by the award and look to pass my experience on the next generation of builders at Manhattan Construction Company”, said Jamison.