Business

Columbia, SC  — Thomas & Hutton is pleased to announce that their project titled, “Driving Economic Growth in South Carolina”, has won the Engineering News Record (ENR) Southeast, ‘Best Project’ Award in the Landscaping/Urban Development Category. The award will be presented to the team, led by Thomas & Hutton’s Columbia Office Regional Director, John Culbreath, PE, at the ENR Southeast awards luncheon in Orlando, Florida on November 1st. “Driving Economic Growth in South Carolina” was selected amongst impressive engineering entries from across the Southeast including Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. The ENR Southeast Best Projects program recognizes design and construction completed by industry leaders that best exemplify the importance of safety, innovation, and teamwork. Thomas & Hutton was retained by Berkeley County, South Carolina (the County) to provide program management and design, permitting, and construction management services to prepare the 1,200-acre Volvo industrial development site for construction of the facility and associated local and regional nine miles of transportation improvements, including ten miles of regional water main infrastructure, a 750,000-gallon regional water storage tank, and 1,150-gpm pump station and 10-inch force main for the regional wastewater infrastructure for the surrounding industrial developments.
Thomas & Hutton served as the County’s single point-of-contact for the overall coordination of the project, working with primary stakeholders including the County, Santee Cooper, Volvo Car US, and several other entities in the region. By establishing clear paths of communication, Thomas & Hutton was able to achieve consistent benchmarks throughout the project, while taking the needs of multiple stakeholders into consideration. Thomas & Hutton levied its experience in the construction industry to formulate a concise budget prior to construction commencing and in turn, coordinated numerous grant opportunities for the project. Thomas & Hutton was responsible for grant coordination and community outreach, ensuring that the project would be successful for current and future developments, while protecting adjacent communities from the impacts of altered landscape.
The new regional industrial campus of Camp Hall and the new Volvo development is estimated to have a $9.5 billion impact for the region. A project of this magnitude will have lasting effects. Not only will the regional infrastructure constructed provide incentive for future development beyond the committed roughly 4,000 jobs by Volvo, but the new developable acreage will provide a lasting global investment opportunity for future companies, raising this region’s current and future opportunities for smart growth. The sustainable efforts reached through this project was realized through the planning, careful mitigation plans and buffers, and providing natural development areas with supportable infrastructure.
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ABOUT THOMAS & HUTTON:
Thomas & Hutton celebrates 72 years of creating transformative communities. Founded in 1946 in Savannah, GA, Thomas & Hutton is a privately-held professional services company providing engineering, planning, landscape architecture, surveying, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and consulting services to public and private clients. Thomas & Hutton has offices in Savannah, Brunswick, Atlanta, and Covington, Georgia; Charleston, Berkeley County, Columbia, Greenville, and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Nashville, Tennessee. For more information, visit www.thomasandhutton.com