[IMAGE]GannetFlemingACECFull.jpg[/IMAGE] Gannett Fleming, an international planning, design, and construction management firm, was recently recognized in the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) 2009 Engineering Excellence Awards (EEA) competition with a prestigious Honor Award.

James R. Laurita, P.E., vice president and regional/area manager, accepted the award on behalf of Gannett Fleming. The project had previously received a Diamond Award in the Transportation category in the ACEC New York 2009 EEA competition. The facility was built for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) New York City Transit, and is the first new, state-of-art, green bus facility for New York City.

The Grand Avenue Bus Depot and Central Maintenance Facility is a multi-level, 550,000 square-foot facility with space for the fueling, maintaining, cleaning, and indoor storage of 200 buses for NYC Transit’s Department of Buses Brooklyn - Queens division. Building up, rather than out, was the solution to the limited availability of large parcels of land in New York City.

Gannett Fleming was the lead designer for the project, which included numerous sustainable design elements to reduce future energy costs by increasing energy efficiency, enhancing indoor environmental air quality and conserving water.

The roof of the Grand Avenue facility has 34 ventilation and heat recovery units. Heat conductors warm the fresh air enough to save approximately 48 percent in heating energy costs. The lightweight exterior wall panel system provides for a thermally efficient outer envelope to enclose the building and reduce heating and cooling loads. Another environmentally friendly, innovative feature of this facility is the zero-emission paint booths that avoid the spread of contaminants with under floor air plenums.