Carrington Elementary School. – Paul Burk Photography.
Farmington, CT—KBE Building Corporation received six awards, including the Merit Cup Award, from Associated Builders and Contractors of Connecticut, Inc. (CT ABC) at the 2014 Annual Dinner & Excellence in Construction Awards.
The Merit Cup Award, CT ABC’s most prestigious, honors the company with the greatest commitment to the merit shop philosophy, in which sub-contractors are hired on a merit basis regardless of their union or non-union status.
The criteria for winning the Merit Cup Award included not only the company’s merit-shop status, but also its commitment to its employees and its involvement with CT ABC.
KBE has been a member since 1983 and received the 30 Year Award for its three decades of involvement with the organization. KBE also won the EIC Spirit Award for employing the highest percentage of CT ABC member company sub-contractors for its 2013 projects.
KBE safety director Adam Peters received the Safety Award based on the low number of recordable incident rates and lost time incident rates for 2013.
At this year’s awards ceremony, KBE won the 2013 Excellence in Construction first prize awards for two different construction projects in two different categories: Carrington Elementary School – Institutional Category, and the Learning Lab at Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network – Other Category (honoring achievement in projects falling outside the parameters of categories such as commercial, industrial, and residential).
Further demonstrating the company’s commitment to youth education in the Northeast, KBE won first place for its work on the Learning Lab at the Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network. The CPN Learning Lab is a $3.5 million, 20,000sf teaching facility including classrooms, a cafetorium, production studios, editing suites, a screening room, state-of-the-art audio and mixing studios, and a media gallery. Friar Associates was also the architect for this project.
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The 2013 Excellence in Construction Institutional category award honors achievement in projects owned by schools, churches, and local governments (excluding healthcare facilities).
“We were thrilled to receive first prize for Carrington Elementary, especially because youth education is one of the causes we champion,” stated Kolakowski. “KBE has completed nearly a dozen K-12 schools in Connecticut and Massachusetts, and we hope to continue our tradition of building stellar educational facilities.”
“The goal of this project was for students to learn about broadcast journalism firsthand by interacting directly with CPBN professionals,” said Kolakowski. “The Learning Lab will also provide workforce development programs for adults, including US veterans – a group that we focused on last year during our 50 Ways of Making a Difference philanthropic campaign.”
Kolakowski and the KBE team received all six awards on January 30 at the Aqua Turf Club in Plantville.
Carrington Elementary School. Photo Credit: Paul Burk Photography.
