MCI building nets national honors for Morelock-Ross

by Clarissa French

SBJ Staff

Morelock-Ross Builders has received national recognition for its work on the MCI Call Center, 1720 E. Primrose, in Primrose Business Park.

Morelock-Ross was named Master Builder of the Year by Star Building Systems.

The Master Builder Award is given once a year to only one of Star's 653 authorized contractors nationwide. The honor was presented to Wayne Morelock and Kenny Ross, partners in Morelock-Ross Builders.

This national award is a first for Morelock-Ross.

And it was only through a combination of the MCI project's high profile and a timely visit by a Star sales manager that the company entered the competition in the first place.

"We have a district sales manager who comes to see us with Star, and he had seen the building and

encouraged us to enter," according to Kenny Ross.

The striking design of the MCI building, the work of Springfield architectural firm Marshall-Waters-Woody Associates, utilizes a unique glass-and-brick design that is the signature of Bob Wehr's Primrose Business Park development, Ross said.

Each building in the development is different, yet all share the unifying reflective-glass-and-brick theme, Ross said. One of the challenges on the project, he said, was making the building distinctive, yet complementary to its surrounding structures.

But the biggest challenge to be mastered was "to match up the need for a distinctive, attractive look, yet keep it economical," he added.

A project of Wehr, Wehr, Johnson & Bridgeforth, the business park comprises approximately 56 acres, only about a third of which has been developed so far, according to John Johnson, of WWJB.

The company frequently uses Morelock-Ross on its projects, Johnson added.

In discussing the award, Ross shared the credit with WWJB. The Master Builder Award "is as much a reflection on them as the developer as it is on us as the builder," he said.

Star Building Systems is a manufacturer of pre-engineered steel buildings. Affiliated contractors enter their best work in an annual multi-category competition which progresses from the regional to the national level.

Morelock-Ross' MCI project received the regional Large Commercial Building of the Year and Best of District awards before advancing to the national competition.

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The MCI Call Center captured the attention of Star Building Systems, which awarded Morelock-Ross its Master Builder of the Year Award.

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The center, designed by Marshall-Waters-Woody Associates, is a project of Wehr, Wehr, Johnson & Bridgeforth.[[In-content Ad]]