Baseline’s design for NREL’s Moss Street Extension Project, which is now Research Road, received Engineering News-Record Mountain Sates’ 2012 Best Projects (ENR) Award of Merit. The project was spurred by the need to reduce traffic volumes and increase safety for visitors and more than 1,000 on-campus employees.
Research Road consists of approximately a half mile of a new, two-lane collector roadway. It includes bike lanes extending to the NREL campus along with pedestrian improvements to serve as the campus’ south entrance. “In order to accommodate significant growth to the NREL South Table Mountain site population, Research Road was added to improve campus operations and safety,” said Eric Telesmanich, NREL principal project manager, Infrastructure and Campus Development Office/Alliance for Sustainable Energy. “Baseline provided planning support to site the new access on the campus and then went on to provide design, bid evaluation and construction administration services. Their support was invaluable to allow us to navigate through local jurisdictions and ensure a successful project completion.”
“We’re honored to receive ENR’s award for such an important project in a high-traffic area involving multiple agencies and issues,” said Baseline Principal, John McLain. “The project intersected with South Golden Road, which is a busy collector seeing over 15,000 vehicles per day. Now, there’s a 135 foot roundabout to control traffic and improve service at this intersection.”
2012 Engineering News-Record’s Best Projects
Environmental and ecological issues were a top priority. To address them, Baseline coordinated efforts among several agencies including the Department of Energy, Jefferson County, Pleasant View Parks and Recreation, CDOT, FEMA, RTD, Xcel Energy, and the cities of Lakewood and Golden.
“Another challenge on this project was to re-use materials in ways that didn’t compromise critical performance and didn’t introduce substances that were potentially harmful to the environment,” said Baseline’s Civil Engineering Manager, Noah Nemmers, P.E. “Since the reconstruction and resurfacing of highways create their own waste, recycling these materials made economic and environmental sense.”
About Engineering News-Record’s Best Projects
A leading source of commercial construction news from McGraw-Hill, ENR’s 2012 Best Projects regional competition includes projects from Utah, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. This year, a panel of seven judges from all industry areas—architects, general contractors, engineers and subcontractors—reviewed 104 entries.
