IMEG Corp.’s Denver Water Operations Redevelopment project has won the 2021 “Grand Conceptor” Award signifying the year’s most outstanding engineering achievement at the 54th Annual Engineering Excellence Awards Gala (EEA) — a national juried competition from the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC).

The awards gala, produced as an online broadcast hosted by noted comedian Ross Shafer, honored 173 of the engineering industry’s most stunning achievements in design from the United States and worldwide. The awards gala was seen by an audience of more than 500 attendees.

Designed by IMEG Corp., the Denver Water Operations Redevelopment complex is an eye-catching redevelopment of a 35-acre water operations plant. The project met several challenging goals, including zero on-site carbon emissions, robust energy and water efficiency, and water reuse, making the facility one of the nation’s most multi-faceted sustainable engineering projects.

The project yielded a 186,000 square foot LEED Platinum, net-zero energy administration building, a 7,400-sf LEED Gold wellness building, a 15,400-sf LEED Gold building renovation, and a 155,000-sf parking structure on the site.

“The Denver Water Operations Redevelopment project is a breathtaking example of sustainable design that showcases how the engineering industry is constantly innovating to raise the bar on environmentally friendly design,” said ACEC President and CEO Linda Bauer Darr. “ACEC congratulates the professionals at IMEG Corp. and all of this year’s winners for demonstrating true engineering excellence.”

The project team at IMEG applied innovative resource management strategies such as radiant cooling sourced from cool mountain water, campus-wide heat recovery to reduce energy consumption, a massive rooftop solar panel array for on-site power generation, a rainwater capture system, and an on-site wastewater treatment system that doubles as the main lobby decoration.

The project joins a prestigious list of previous Grand Conceptor Award winners, including the Copperhill Watershed Restoration (Ducktown, Tennessee, 2020); Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement (Seattle, 2019); the Bayonne Bridge: Raising the Roadway Project (Bayonne, NJ/Staten Island, NY, 2018); and the SR 520 Floating Bridge Replacement (Seattle, 2017).

Other 2021 Engineering Excellence Award Winners include:

Grand Awards

  • Lakefront Trail Pedestrian Bridge, Chicago; HNTB     
  • The Heights, Arlington, VA; Silman                           
  • Bank of America Tower, Houston, TX; Walter P Moore
  • I-40 Business Reconstruction, Winston-Salem, NC; HDR Engineering of the Carolinas.
  • Cements Hardened by Carbonation, Piscataway, NJ; Braun Intertec      
  • Santa Monica City Hall East, Santa Monica, CA; KPFF
  • Allegiant Stadium, Las Vegas, NV; HNTB                    
  • New Shredder Site, Becker, MN; Short Elliott Hendrickson     
  • Organic Waste into Liquid Gold, Muscatine, IA; Stanley Consultants
  • Marine Studies Initiative Building—Newport, OR; GRI and KPFF       
  • Able Pump Station, Dallas, TX; HDR                                       
  • Chase Center, San Francisco, CA; Magnusson Klemencic Associates    
  • Zeiss Regional Headquarters, Lyon Township, MI; SmithGroup
  • Hemphill Lamar Connector, Fort Worth, TX; TranSystems       
  • Canarsie Tunnel Rehab, New York, NY; WSP USA                              

2021 HONOR AWARDS

  •  NJ Transit Microgrid Central Facility, Town of Kearny, NJ; BEM Systems                    
  • Grand Canyon National Park Airport Drainage, Tusayan, AZ; Dibble                             
  • Wind Turbine Foundation Evaluation, Desert Sky, TX; Terracon Consultants               
  • USTA Louis Armstrong Stadium, New York, NY; WSP USA                
  • Rejuvenating the Pulaski Skyway, Kearny, NJ; Arora and Associates                           
  • Rowan Deep Tunnel Pump Station, Louisville, KY; HDR
  • Patapsco WWTP Nutrient Removal Facility, Baltimore, MD; Rummel Klepper & Kahl
  • Patapsco Interceptor Relocation and Bloede Dam Removal, Catonsville, MD; Inter-Fluve, KCI, Hazen & Sawyer and Kiewit Corp.
  • Lomitas Negras Phase II, Rio Rancho, NM; Smith Engineering                        
  • Water Siphon Replacement, New York, NY; WSP/LiRo (A Joint Venture)                   
  • Carolina Bays Parkway Phase III, Myrtle Beach, SC; Civil Engineering Consulting Services
  • I-29 Improvements in Sioux City, Sioux City, IA; HDR and HR Green
  • Yeager Airport Runway 5, Charleston, WV; Schnabel Engineering                               
  • I-5 HOV Improvements, Santa Ana, CA; T.Y. Lin International           
  • Reconstruction of I-84, Westbury, CT; WSP USA         
  • West Riverside Energy Center, Beloit WI; HDR
  • World Trade Center Downtown Restoration, New York, NY; WSP USA
  • Forrest Hills Community Slope, Swannanoa, NC; ECS Southeast
  • Pages Mill Pond Dam Fishway, Branford, CT; Nathan L. Jacobson & Associates          
  •  Arkansas Lithium Plant, El Dorado, AR; Hunt, Guillot & Associates

For more information about the 2021 ACEC Engineering Excellence Awards program, contact Alan D. Crockett at 202-682-4301 or by email at acrockett@acec.org.

The American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) is the business association of the nation’s engineering industry. Founded in 1906, ACEC is a national federation of 52 state and regional organizations representing more than 5,400 engineering firms and 500,000+ engineers, surveyors, architects, and other specialists nationwide. ACEC member firms drive the design of America’s infrastructure and built environment.