Awards, News

CHA Scores Four 2023 ACEC New York Engineering Excellence Awards

Posted December 16, 2022

CHA Consulting, Inc. (CHA) scored four 2023 ACEC New York Engineering Excellence Awards for its innovative work on projects from Buffalo to New York City. ACEC New York has recognized the firm’s achievement with one diamond, two platinum, and one gold award. Considered the “academy awards” of the consulting engineering industry, this annual competition honors the year’s top projects for their innovation, complexity, and overall value to society. According to ACEC, the awards recognize the “many significant contributions consulting engineers make to the built environment around the world.”

Design-Build Quality Oversight For Five Life Safety and Resiliency Projects at the Hugh L. Carey and Queens Midtown Tunnels

CHA earned a Diamond Award in the Special Projects category for its work on the Design-Build Quality Oversight For Five Life Safety and Resiliency Projects at the Hugh L. Carey and Queens Midtown Tunnels in New York City. As part of a joint venture with Cowi, CHA provided quality oversite on ventilation system rehabilitation, service building rehabilitation and electrical upgrades, new fire alarms and smoke detection systems at facility buildings, and rehabilitation of tunnel controls and communication systems. The upgrades have improved the tunnels’ existing systems, enhanced public safety, and strengthened the reliability of the city’s transportation network.

Harlem Valley Rail Trail

The Harlem Valley Rail Trail project earned a Platinum Award in the Special Projects category. Located along an abandoned railroad corridor in Dutchess and Columbia Counties, the trail offers a 10-foot-wide shared-use path with a mix of paved surfaces and boardwalk through the woods, along several streams, and traversing a bog turtle habitat and wetlands. The trail design preserved a fragile ecosystem and prioritized natural habitats, agricultural districts, wetlands, and threatened and endangered species. The design also included rehabilitating six unique railroad bridges and new trail crossings at several intersections.

Tivoli Park Preserve Stream Daylighting

The Tivoli Park Preserve Stream Daylighting project was awarded a Platinum Award in the Water Resources category. Using the unique practice of stream daylighting, a 1,700 linear foot portion of Patroon Creek, which previously flowed underground through a deteriorating 90-year-old pipe, was transformed into a highly naturalized stream corridor with pools, riffles, runs, slides, waterfalls, and a high-flow overflow channel to Tivoli Lake. The stream features a meandering channel, includes local boulders and stones, and is framed by a native plant palate.

Roswell Park Cancer Institute Main Substation Replacement

CHA earned a Gold Award for its innovative energy work on the Roswell Park Cancer Institute Main Substation Replacement. Founded in 1898, the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center sits on a 29-acre campus near Buffalo and serves nearly 50,000 patients each year.

Roswell Park relies on its own substation to supply power to the entire campus. Realizing the limitations of the aging 23/4.16kV electrical service infrastructure, the replacement project was initiated to improve the system’s reliability, automatic functions to support redundancy, self-healing, real-time metering, and system recovery/service restoration after a service interruption.

Winning projects will be recognized at the ACEC New York Engineering Excellence Gala on March 24, 2023. Details of all the award-winning projects may be viewed at: https://acecny.org/page/eeawinners2023.