2008 EMINENT CONCEPTOR AWARD
The one highest award given each year, the Eminent Conceptor Award, recognizes an engineering achievement which demonstrates a high degree of merit and ingenuity, contributes to the advancement of the private practice of engineering, and enhances the economic and social welfare of the general public.
STRUCTURAL SYSTEMS
A. EPSTEIN AND SONS INTERNATIONAL, INC.
McCormick Place Convention Center West Expansion
Owner: Nonda Harris, Senior Director of Development
Consultants: Antunovich & Associates; Catt Lyon Design; Desmond Associates; Globetrotter Engineering Corporation; Graef, Anhalt, Schloemer & Associates; ISI Interior Space International' Macondo Corp.; Maureen Reagan Architects; meXt Wayfinding + Design; Regina Webster & Associates; Schirmer Engineering Corporation; Walter P. Moore Associates; Wolff Landscape Architecture; Lighting Design Alliance; Naughton + Associates, Inc.; Security Consulting Kroll; Lawrence B. Berkley; Brook Architecture
The West Expansion is bordered by Martin Luther King Drive to the east, the Stevenson Expressway to the south, Cermak Road to the north and Indiana Avenue to the west. The West Expansion includes approximately 459,000 square feet of exhibition space, 140,750 square feet of meeting/banquet space, a 103,750 square foot ballroom, as well as associated food and support service spaces. The addition required connecting the existing McCormick Place complex with pedestrian and vehicular bridges and modifying an existing parking garage and conference center. The new facility also necessitated designing an elevated service roadway between the existing truck marshalling facility at the South Hall and exhibition center.
This expansion enabled McCormick Place to remain the largest exhibition facility in the United States.
