McCormick Taylor is pleased to announce the City of Aiken Parkways Revitalization Project received an Engineering Excellence Award from the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) South Carolina. We also received the Small Firm Award, which recognizes the highest-rated project submitted by a small firm, defined as fewer than 30 South Carolina employees.
"Winning this award is a testament to the importance of establishing and maintaining open communication between the client, the design team, and the contractor from start to finish," said Jason Hetrick, PE, CFM, Project Manager. "I am grateful to have been able to work with such a great team, and our effort is evident by the success of the project."
Since 1986, ACEC-SC's annual Engineering Excellence Awards program has honored the year’s most outstanding engineering accomplishments. The project creates a destination activity that will attract visitors and residents to spend more time downtown and make active use of neighborhood parkways.
Aiken’s parkways, the greenway medians between one‐way streets in the historic Aiken grid street system, are integral to the community’s history and its future. In recent years, through multiple planning and community visioning processes and activities, citizens have expressed a desire to enhance the parkways within Aiken’s historic grid.
The city’s vision was to create a network of pathways in and around historic downtown Aiken – where the paths through the Parkways provide access to a range of places for people to relax, meet, and play in a beautiful natural setting while also connecting people to historical points of interest and telling the story of notable people/events in Aiken’s history.
McCormick Taylor redesigned eight parkway bioretentions following recommendations from a previously performed study to identify areas where the best management practices (BMP) may be reduced in size or retrofitted to meet the needs of the city. Additionally, McCormick Taylor designed walking paths to extend throughout these parkways to allow for pedestrian interconnectivity.
While designing the walkways, McCormick Taylor worked with City staff to lay out the paths. Due to the proximity of trees along the walking path, having a flexible surface was paramount to limit heaving from roots. Ultimately, pervious rubber surface was selected for installation.
