SAN FRANCISCO, CA

Two DPR teams volunteered to build sandcastles at the 29th annual Leap Sandcastle Contest in October. For the last five years, the DPR/Gensler team has competed with a fifth-grade class from Ulloa Elementary School. Another team, made up of DPR’s UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay project team and Stantec, also competed. As a nonprofit organization, Leap provides quality arts education programs to students.

PHOENIX, AZ

“What is important to us is to also get our hands dirty, and in the last four years we have donated 10,000 hours of hands on volunteer work,” said Dave Elrod, DPR Phoenix’s regional manager, in regards to receiving the Corporate Culture Award from the Phoenix Business Journal. Selected by a volunteerism advisory board comprised of community leaders and members of the Phoenix Business Journal newsroom, DPR was recognized for its “outstanding community relations program.” With no application process, the award came as a complete surprise; DPR was selected from the entire metropolitan Phoenix area based on word of mouth.

ATLANTA, GA

The 162,000-sq.-ft. research and development (R&D) laboratory and office space project (also known as Project Forward) for Novelis, the world leader of rolled aluminum products, was recognized as one of Engineering News-Record (ENR) Southeast’s best projects from among more than 100 entries in this year’s award competition. Completed in February, the project included the consolidation of two existing facilities, including the relocation of highly specialized equipment from out of state, and ISO 17025 certification of some laboratory spaces.

DURHAM, NC

DPR recently completed a 185,000-sq.-ft., award-winning renovation and expansion of the United Therapeutics office building. The project included a daycare, high-end office space, executive suite, product packaging space and a warehouse with automated retrieval system. In addition to the building amenities, a 396-space precast parking structure with 30 electric car charging stations and a 100 kilowatt (kW) solar panel array was also added. The project won the Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc. (ABC) of the Carolinas Excellence in Construction Merit Award. DPR completed the original manufacturing facility space in February 2009.

MARYSVILLE, CA

After completing 38,000 man hours with no injuries, DPR and the Yuba Community College District were recognized with a safety award at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Sutter County Educational Facility. The $18.6 million project used an Owner Controlled Insurance Program (OCIP) under the Statewide Educational Wrap Up Program (SEWUP). After monthly jobsite safety visits and reports, Keenan Associates, which administers OCIP, presented the award to DPR and the district on behalf of SEWUP. The 55,000-sq.-ft. Sutter Educational Facility is the first building on the 15-acre campus, which was designed with sufficient utility infrastructure to accommodate future growth.

SAN DIEGO, CA

The grand opening of Verenium’s 60,000-sq.-ft. biotechnology facility, which is targeting LEED® Gold certification, took place in July. Owned and operated by Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc., the Nautilus campus, attracted both Verenium and the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF) as new tenants after renovating. DPR’s Self Perform-Work (SPW) group used prefabricated drywall profiles in the main lobbies, which saved almost a week on the schedule. James Levine, president and chief executive officer of Verenium said, “The completion of our new facility is an important milestone for the future growth of our business, and we thank everyone involved in helping us with this achievement.”

NATIONAL

The third and latest version of the free DPR Model Slicer plug-in for Autodesk Revit® is now available for download on the DPR website. With nearly 500 registered users to date, the DPR Model Slicer facilitates the process of splitting and sectioning a 3-D Revit model by floors and areas. Go to http://modelslicer.dpr.com to download the tool.

EMERYVILLE, CA

The adaptive reuse, LEED Platinum certified Clif Bar & Company Headquarters project was selected by the Center for the Built Environment as the winner of the 2012 Livable Buildings Award, which recognizes healthy, sustainable environments. In addition to other green features, the headquarters’ solar installation produces 530 kilowatts (kW) to meet nearly all of the office’s electricity needs. Now a workplace haven for its outdoor-enthusiast employees, the ultra-modern space was once a valve manufacturing facility.

WEBSTER, TX

To celebrate both the hospital’s expansion, as well as the facility’s 40th anniversary, Clear Lake Regional Medical Center (CLRMC) held a steel-signing ceremony attended by local dignitaries, trustees, honored CLRMC staff members and DPR. The new tower portion of the project is under construction, as well as a six-phase remodel on the existing, adjacent building, which will become the new Women’s Center. Construction is scheduled to be completed by 2013.

LA JOLLA, CA

With a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by local healthcare and community leaders, the new $43.9 million, 45,000-sq.-ft., two-story Scripps Radiation Therapy Center officially opened in October. The center has the capacity to treat about 1,200 cancer patients annually.

NATIONAL

Furthering the reach of building information modeling (BIM) in every aspect of a project is one of DPR’s primary aims, according to DPR’s Eric Lamb in the September 24 issue of ENR, which featured a profile on DPR called “Grass-Roots Innovation.” Lamb added, “Bringing more of what we’re going to build into the process of design increases predictability, reduces the risk and adds more value to the customer.” The story also featured DPR’s Innovation Group, which aims to speed up the rate of change across the company, and how new processes and technologies are helping DPR’s self-perform crews increase efficiency and opportunities for prefabrication.

SILICON VALLEY, CA

Companies in real estate and construction made up 31 percent of this year’s list of the largest private companies in Silicon Valley, according to the San Jose/Silicon Valley Business Journal, and DPR ranked No. 1. Some other interesting statistics: $72.4 million was the median revenue of companies on the list, and the average age of a company on the list was 29.8 years old (DPR is 22).

CALIFORNIA

Three DPR projects were recognized as part of ENR California’s Best Projects 2012 awards. Opened to the public in August, the 11-story, 740,000-sq.-ft. Palomar Medical Center in Escondido, CA, also regarded as the “Hospital of the Future,” won Best Health Care as well as Best Overall Project. The 50,000-sq.-ft. wood and steel David and Lucile Packard Foundation Headquarters in Los Altos, CA, won Best Green Project. In addition, Sutter Health Eden Medical Center, which had an 11-party integrated project delivery (IPD) team, received an award of merit in the Health Care project category.

PHOENIX, AZ

The first net-zero commercial office building in Arizona, DPR’s Phoenix office was named ENR Southwest’s Best Project of the Year and won the Building Design + Construction (BD+C) 2012 Reconstruction Bronze award. Also featured in Contract magazine, the LEED-NC Platinum certified building contains 82 Solatube® daylighting systems, which eliminate the need for artificial lighting by 90 percent, and the solar panel-covered parking canopy system, which produces 180,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity annually.

SOUTH JORDAN, UT

In September, DPR broke ground on a modular, high-density data center for eBay, Inc. called Project Quicksilver. The project includes a 85,000-sq.-ft. shell, a 13,000-sq.-ft. whitespace buildout, and a spline building and site work to support two modular data containers, 6 megawatts (MW) of initial Bloom Energy fuel cells, generator, uninterruptible power supply (UPS) and high efficiency cooling, with infrastructure for future expansion to 18MW.

PHOENIX, AZ

With 762 people in attendance, the 7x24 Exchange Fall Conference had the second highest turnout in the event’s 20-year history. Held at the Arizona Biltmore, the theme of the conference was “Vision: From Idea to Impact.” The event is a knowledge exchange for those who design, build, operate and maintain mission-critical enterprise information infrastructures. DPR kicked off the conference by hosting a golf tournament, appropriately named Kilowatt Klassic, and later hosted a hospitality event, which included about 75 guests.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA

The stars were out in September: Salesforce.com founder Marc Benioff and his wife, philanthropist Lynne Benioff, hosted a benefit concert under the Salesforce.com Foundation umbrella for UCSF Medical Center’s Benioff Children’s Hospital at Mission Bay. Grammy award-winning trio Lady Antebellum and comedian Dana Carvey headlined the event, drawing a crowd of thousands and raising $4.3 million to support the hospital, which is part of the larger UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay project.

CARROLLTON, TX

Turning a warehouse facility into a colocation data center for owner CyrusOne, DPR and joint venture partner Fortis Construction recently completed its first phase, which included 40,000 sq. ft. of data center white space. With additional phases planned, the center once fully built out will include 400,000 sq. ft. of data center white space and 60,000 sq. ft. of Class A office space. To shorten schedule and maximize scope, the building team got involved in preconstruction early and provided continuous value analysis.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA

November was a busy month: the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) and Greenbuild 2012 conferences both occurred. There were more than 1,500 attendees at ISPE, which included 52 educational sessions and discussion groups on topics ranging from nanotechnology to international regulations. At Greenbuild, three DPR projects (Mills College Graduate School of Business, Sacred Heart Schools, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation Headquarters) were featured on two tours. Greenbuild highlights included: Google bestowing a $3 million grant to the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) for healthy building materials research, a celebration of new LEED fellows, and DPR formally joining the Health Product Declaration Collaborative (HPD), an organization committed to improving the building industry’s environmental and health performance.

PRINEVILLE, OR; LULEA, SWEDEN; FOREST CITY, NC

Facebook data center teams around the world have had cause to celebrate over the last few months: The Prineville project marked more than 1 million safe hours in July; the king of Sweden visited the Lulea site in October; and the Forest City team completed the first of three ground-up data centers at their greenfield site in June, two weeks ahead of schedule with zero defects, and recently completed the first phase of the second ground-up data center one month ahead of schedule, also trending toward zero defects.

TUCSON, AZ

ENR Southwest named the Pima County, University of Arizona Health Network, Behavioral Health & Crisis Response Center as the 2012 Best Health Care Project in the Southwest.

MCLEAN, VA

Despite significant changes in scope, DPR met the August 13, non-negotiable “opening day” for the newly renovated Kaiser Permanente Tysons Corner Medical Center to provide care for its patients. With three days to spare on an aggressive 20-month schedule, the team received a Certificate of Occupancy on August 10 and won a 2012 BIM award from the Associated General Contractors (AGC) of Metropolitan Washington, DC, for converting a more than 240,000-sq.-ft., 30-year-old office building into a modern seven-floor medical center. The facility includes six operating rooms, 15 imaging suites, 30 treatment rooms, a sterile processing area, critical decision unit (CDU) offices, and additional support spaces.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA

Chocolate + construction + kids = fun and learning when it comes to the Chocolate Factory project. Started by Genentech in 2006 and organized annually by the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE), the October community outreach event helps kids discover science and engineering principles as they build chocolate factory models from ordinary materials. DPR volunteers helped students learn about fermentation, manufacturing and construction while playing designer, builder, electrician and plumber.