Hayward Baker Wins Keystone Award

Geotechnical specialty contractor Hayward Baker Inc. (HBI) has been named the recipient of a Keystone Award from the Associated General Contractors of St. Louis (AGC). The award was presented to HBI in the “Specialty Contractor/Subcontractor Project Under $1 Million” category for performing earth retention work on Quincy Blessing Hospital, which is a healthcare institution located in an urban, historic neighborhood of Quincy, Ill.

This is the second year in a row that HBI has been presented a Keystone Award, and its sixth award in total.

The award was presented to Senior Engineer Jeffrey R. Hill, P.E., Area Manager Gregory A. Terri, P.E., and Project Engineer Dan Weingart of Hayward Baker’s St. Louis area office at AGC’s 2014 Construction Awards Gala held on Nov. 14, 2014 in downtown St. Louis.

The Keystone Award honors the achievements of St. Louis-area construction firms and their employees in building the facilities that support and enhance the quality of life in Greater St. Louis. Keystone Award recipients display excellence in providing solutions to unique obstacles and challenges specific to their projects.

The selection panel for the award consists of leaders in the St. Louis construction and engineering industry.  Award winners are selected based on the complexity and uniqueness of construction, their solutions to these challenges, the innovative use of manpower and technology, safety, project communications, workforce diversity, the quality of construction, schedule and budget adherence, as well as the carbon footprint of the project’s life.

 

Challenges faced by Quincy Blessing Hospital

Because Quincy Blessing Hospital is situated in a fully developed historic urban neighborhood, space for any addition was at

a premium. The size of the building along with the connectivity of the new addition to the existing facilities required construction of the addition immediately adjacent to the existing hospital.

The architectural plans required a deep basement at a section of the proposed building – one that tied in to the existing building. The basement excavation would extend below the bottom of the drilled shafts supporting the active hospital.

The project required a start date of late December with an aggressive schedule. Despite harsh winter weather conditions, the HBI crew completed its work of supporting the active hospital wing within schedule.

Major challenges to be addressed before production included excavating in saturated sands beneath the drilled shafts supporting the existing tower. Any loss of soils and water into the excavation would result in settlement and damage to the existing building.

HBI utilized a state-of-the-art drilling technique, never performed before in the Midwest, to overcome these challenges. The technique requires specialty equipment designed and constructed in Germany, and allows for drilling to proceed with no ground loss despite the running sand.

Additional challenges included meeting various criteria for tolerable vibration, noise, dust, plus other environmental concerns such as staging the work to block diesel fumes from entering the hospital’s air intake.

The excavation and construction of the new building were completed without any unanticipated movement of the existing structure.

Commenting on the recognition received for carrying out this project, Jeffrey Hill, senior engineer with HBI said, “The Keystone Awards are an institution in St. Louis for recognizing outstanding projects. We were quite pleased to have the Quincy Blessing Project honored through such a prestigious award.”