Greene County, MSU rec center earn Salute accolades

During the annual Salute to Construction awards banquet held last night, Greene County was named Developer of the Year and work connected to Missouri State University's Bill R. Foster and Family Recreation Center swept the remainder.

The 21st annual banquet, presented by the Salute to Construction Council - which comprises 20 groups including the Springfield Contractors Association - was held last night at the Howard Johnson Hotel, 3333 S. Glenstone Ave.

Greene County took home Developer of the Year honors for construction of the $20 million Springfield-Greene County Public Safety Center, a building that can withstand an EF-5 tornado and was designed as a base of operations for more than 70 federal, state and local disaster response teams. Once funding was in place, the project took about 30 months to complete with 85 percent of the work provided by local contractors such as Allen's Mechanical, Faith Technologies, Killian Digital LLC, Kirberg Roofing Inc. and Prestressed Casting Co., according to the county's application. DeWitt & Associates Inc. served as general contractor for the project, and Pellham-Phillips Architects & Engineers Inc. worked with Winter Park, Fla.-based emergency management specialist Architects Design Group as the project's architects.

Project Team of the Year honors went to the workers behind the $30 million recreation center on MSU's Springfield campus near JQH Arena.

Superintendent of the Year went to Leonard Gass for his work on the recreation center with general contractor DeWitt & Associates Inc., and Terry Prall of Custom Manufacturing & Polishing Inc. was named Craftsman of the Year for his stainless steel handrails within the center, which was officially dedicated late last month,

The 95,000-square-foot rec center includes a lap pool with a zip line and hydrotherapy jets, and a 26-foot rock climbing wall.

For more on this story, look to Springfield Business Journal's Nov. 2 Early Friday Digital Edition or its Nov. 5 print edition.[[In-content Ad]]