was emphasized by news that the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau partly attributes the boom in Atlanta tourism to media exposure received with the opening of the Georgia Aquarium, indicating how the project has had a positive impact on the city's community. Indeed, the Aquarium's unique Learning Loop, with five wet labs, offers school groups the opportunity to learn, while a partnership between the Georgia Aquarium and the University of Georgia has created the Veterinary Services and Conservation Medicine Program, a dedicated veterinary teaching hospital on site. Meanwhile, the Correll Center for Aquatic Animal Health is a 10,500- square- foot facility with 26 treatment tanks that provides a unique opportunity for research that will improve husbandry methods for animals, gain a better understanding of aquatic species, and apply new discoveries to the conservation of aquatic life. The Georgia Aquarium is just one of the many successful projects Brasfield & Gorrie has overseen. The company believes the work it has undertaken represents a legacy for the Southeast but believes it is the human element that contributes most to its standing. Little wonder then that the Atlanta office of Brasfield & Gorrie was recently named by the Atlanta Business Chronicle as one of Atlanta's " Top Places to Work" for 2009. Additionally, the project's 100,000 cubic yards of concrete- for both the Aquarium and parking deck- represented roughly double the amount that the company had used to build the Georgia Dome. Fortunately, Brasfield & Gorrie's values kicked in at this point, and through its pooled experience, it developed a 30- month overall project schedule, with a more thorough version later detailing more than 2,300 separate activities on the site. The current expansion, with a price tag of $ 110 million, will see the construction of an 84,000- square-foot exhibit that will house bottlenose dolphins. It will include a 1.3- million- gallon tank to hold the dolphins and of course will incorporate viewing windows. The project began in 2008 with the closure of the east side of the Aquarium and the construction of a new walkway elevator on the western side. Throughout, one of the main challenges has been to maintain a sense of business as usual at the site, which has required B& G to use all its experience to carefully plan operations to have minimum impact on both visitors and the fish themselves, since noise and vibrations can affect creature well- being. Having demolished the outdoor sea lion exhibit, the company was able to begin digging a site for the four dolphin tanks. It took the best part of a month to remove all the pumps and electronics used for the outdoor facility, and construction finally got under way in July last year. Having been ranked as the country's top " green" contractor, it comes as little surprise that Brasfield & Gorrie has long embraced LEED values on projects. While the Georgia Aquarium expansion is not going to be LEED certified, the operation is following LEED processes for waste removal as part of the workplace procedure. As with the original project to build the Aquarium, construction work needs to be complete long before the exhibit opens its doors to the public in November 2010, so that all the hydro- testing can take place to ensure a safe and comfortable environment for the Aquarium's newest incumbents. Through its work on projects like the Georgia Aquarium, B& G is making a significant contribution to society. This "" The exterior of the building was designed to look like a giant ship breaking through a wave" Brasfield & Gorrie NOVEMBER 09 www. bus- ex. com 133

134 www. bus- ex. com NOVEMBER 09 Hensel Phelps is the design- build contractor managing the construction of a brand new, state- of- the- art complex for the US Southern Command. Iris Seymour has the story Buttressed fortress