Bragging Rights

Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Beck Ireland, Staff Writer

Electrical firms overcome significant challenges to perform quality work on high-profile projects

With overall construction spending in the black and double-digit increases for non-residential construction in the last few years, electrical firms have been elbow-deep in challenging, high-profile projects. In the pages of EC&M, we often illustrate our articles with examples from these projects, but rarely do we highlight the contractor's work in full. For 2008, we'd like to change that. In our new department, “Project Spotlight,” we will feature the formidable obstacles certain tasks pose and the unique plans electrical firms create to overcome them. Following are just a few examples of ingenuity in our industry, giving you a glimpse of what's to come in our new department next year.

O'HARE MODERNIZATION PROGRAM, CHICAGO

The O'Hare Modernization Program (OMP) is a multi-million-dollar project intended to reduce delays, increase capacity, and improve efficiency at the Chicago airport. Upon completion, scheduled for Nov. 20, 2008, the OMP is expected to decrease the average delay time from 22 minutes to less than 16 minutes. The OMP has awarded $750 million in construction contracts and has approximately $640 million in additional contracts that will be awarded within the next year. In addition to adding a runway, OMP is relocating three existing runways and extending two others. A new western terminal will create a western entrance with up to 60 gates and include an automated pedestrian mover to transport passengers between terminals. The project also includes wetlands mitigation, land acquisition, and the construction of on-airport access roads.

Scheduled to open in November, the multi-million-dollar O’Hare Modernization Program (OMP) is just one of many high-profile projects slated for completion next year.

One of the world's busiest airports, O'Hare hasn't decreased the number of flights during construction. As the project progresses, safety, efficiency, and planning and coordination are of the utmost importance. To complete the threshold displacement for runway 14L so that the new runway (9L/27R on the North Field) could be built, Aldridge Electric, Inc., Libertyville, Ill., the general contractor on the $20.1 million contract, coordinated two shifts, which included working weekends and holidays. “The challenge of that job was to maintain operation of the runway,” says Frank Manna, division manager for Aldridge's Airport Division. “The work that was involved in the actual runway had to be done at night. We had to open the runway every morning at 6 a.m. Operationally, that's a challenge — to not disrupt the airport's traffic flow.”

From April 14, 2006, to Nov. 2, 2006, Aldridge supervised as many as 15 subcontractors as well as performed work around-the-clock. “We actually had multiple shifts. Our work times for the runway safety area was from 10 p.m. until 6 a.m. We had three separate electrical crews: one doing approach lighting, another one doing installation of underground duct banks, and the third pulling cable. We also had our subcontractors moving earth, and then also doing asphalt.”

Since the completion of that contract, Aldridge Electric has been the GC on two other OMP projects and participated in a total of six OMP contracts to date.

Currently, Aldridge is working on the new runway under three separate contracts. One is as a subcontractor for the runway and taxiway lights on the actual construction of the runway. A separate contract for that same runway is as the prime contractor on a $15.2 million contract for the demolition, relocation, and installation of the navigational equipment (NAVAIDS), which is the equipment on the airfield that allows the pilots and the aircraft in the cockpit to land the aircraft safely in all types of different weather. “It's all the other visual, audible, and other electronic information that assists them in navigating the aircraft to a safe landing,” Manna says. “That's all the FAA-owned instruments and lighting for the approaches on that runway. It consists of localizer antenna, glide slope antennas, other miscellaneous FAA equipment, and approach lighting on both ends.”

The third contract is for an additional NAVAIDS project. “They're lengthening runway 10/28, and we're doing the new navigational aids for that extension,” Manna says. “The scope of work is almost identical to 9L NAVAIDS.”

For the work it has completed on the OMP, Aldridge has received recognition for both safety and sustainability. The firm has completed its work with no recordable incident occurrences, and has also followed the OMP's sustainable design manual.

For compliance with the OMP regulations, the firm recycled material from the field. “Nothing really leaves the airport and goes into landfills,” Manna says. “The asphalt's recycled, the earth's recycled, the concrete's recycled.”

In addition, the electrical firm modified its equipment for EPA Tier 2 emissions compliance. “We had to use ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel to reduce emissions,” Manna says.

The firm also installed vapor scrubbers on all the equipment. Since construction began, more than a million gallons of ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel have been used.

MUSEUM PLAZA, LOUISVILLE, KY.

This facility will mark Kentucky's largest public-private project, providing 1.5 million square feet of mixed-use space near the Ohio River's riverfront. Reaching 703 feet tall at the highest point, the Museum Plaza's towers will include 99 luxury condominiums, 117 studio loft condominiums, 270,400 square feet of office space, a 260-room Westin Hotel, and 36,500 square feet dedicated to the University of Louisville's Master of Fine Arts program. The 3-acre plaza will feature a new public park with connections to the Muhammad Ali Center and the riverfront. The project's centerpiece, however, will be “the island,” designed to float virtually 25 stories in the air and to house the museum space, scheduled to open in spring 2010.