Gresham Smith Transportation Projects Win ACEC Tennessee Awards

November 2, 2018

Gresham Smith has taken home the Grand Award in the Transportation category of the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) Tennessee’s 2018 Engineering Excellence Awards program. The winning project is the Gresham Smith-designed Division Street extension bridge and Complete Street in Nashville, Tenn. The firm also took home an Honor Award in the Transportation category for the City of Morristown Main Street Lighting project. The awards were presented at ACEC Tennessee’s 50th Anniversary Gala on October 26th at the Omni Nashville Hotel.

“Gresham Smith is honored to win major transportation awards from ACEC Tennessee for the fourth year in a row,” commented Michael Flatt, P.E., regional vice president at Gresham Smith. “We share the awards with our clients as these projects were true team efforts, and we also share the awards with the residents of Nashville and Morristown. Our work introduced pedestrian-friendly transportation solutions that we believe are improving quality-of-life in these communities and demonstrate the future of the transportation industry. Thank you to our peers who have recognized our efforts through the EEA program.”

The Division Street extension bridge and Complete Street project introduces a vital piece of infrastructure in Nashville, Tennessee. The half-mile multi-modal extension bridge runs from 8th Avenue South to 2nd Avenue South, providing a critical connection from the booming Gulch district through the SoBro community, while linking major transportation arteries including I-40. The project includes four traffic lanes along with a new buffered cycle track and wide sidewalks for pedestrians. It is designed for low maintenance with weathered steel beams and a continuous concrete deck with only a single expansion joint at the western abutment.

The City of Morristown Main Street Lighting project featured upgrades to the historic district’s elevated sidewalk system. Morristown Utility Systems asked Gresham Smith to develop a variety of designs to make the Main Street area more pedestrian friendly. The firm ultimately partnered with Massey Electric Company and The Wakefield Corporation to replace the elevated sidewalk’s existing High-Pressure Sodium (HPS) lights with decorative LED fixtures and the lower sidewalk’s open cable tray system with lay-in LED lighting that would be incorporated into a new lay-in PVC ceiling tile system. Additionally, the team installed a new amplified speaker system.

Gresham Smith previously won the Grand Iris Award in ACEC Tennessee’s EEA program for three years in a row: in 2017 for the TDOT I-40/SR-66 diverging diamond interchange (DDI) in Sevierville, which also won the People’s Choice Award, in 2016 for the I-40 Fast Fix 8 Accelerated Bridge Construction project in Nashville, and in 2015 for the SR-254 over Otter Creek Bridge in Davidson County. Additional winning projects recognized by ACEC Tennessee have included the Bowling Green Wastewater Treatment Plant expansion in Bowling Green, Ky., the Lower Big Haynes Regional Pumping System in Georgia’s Gwinnett County and KUB’s Second Creek Wastewater Storage Facility in Knoxville, Tenn.

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