Last month, the Truckee Meadows Branch of ASCE held its annual “Outstanding Achievement in Civil Engineering” Awards Ceremony. I am proud to announce that our submittal of the New Reno Toyota Dealership won for the Structural Category. Here is the description of the project that was entered into this contest.

“The Reno Toyota Dealership consists of a 64,000 square foot showroom and office facility as well as a 267,000 square foot vehicle storage and maintenance facility. This project incorporates a variety of building materials including reinforced concrete, steel and masonry. The service and vehicle storage area is a four story post-tensioned concrete system with concrete bearing and shear walls. In order to conceal the parking garage appearance, the building is finished with curved vertical steel trusses with an aluminum perforated screen and precast concrete panels. The showroom portion is a two story CMU shear wall building with steel joists and columns. Structural steel is also integrated into the extensive curtain wall system. The dealership was designed in phases in order to make use of the vehicle storage prior to the completion of the entire project. Construction on this project is scheduled to be completed by January 2010 and will be the largest Toyota dealership on the west coast of the United States.”

Our congratulations go out to the other project winners as well as the engineers of the year award :

• For the Environmental Category: North Virginia/Stead Pumping System Improvement Project
• For the Transportation Category: SouthEast Connector Plan Line Study
• For Civil Engineer of the Year: Robert Calloway, PE, PTOE
• For Young Engineer of the Year: Garth Oksol, PE