ADOT named owner of the year

Engineering News-Record Southwest magazine recently named the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) as its Owner of the Year.

The award honored the department for its management of infrastructure projects throughout the year as well as its relationships with the Arizona construction industry.

“As an agency we are proud to have received this honor,” ADOT Director John Halikowski said. “Our employees deserve a lot of credit for working through the challenges presented by the economic downturn last decade. Transportation is such an important part of the state’s economic engine.”

The magazine specifically highlighted ADOT's $110 million Loop 202 Red Mountain Freeway widening project in Mesa and its $73 million widening of Loop 101 in the Scottsdale area.

“ADOT’s commitment to working with the contracting industry to resolve challenges and to build strong working relationships is one of the best in the country,” Sundt Construction Inc. CEO Mike Hoover told Engineering News-Record Southwest. “In fact, ADOT has led the nation in its innovative partnering strategies since the early 1990s.”

ADOT also earned the annual Excellency in Safety Award and the Best Highway/Bridge Project for its $25 million reconstruction of U.S. 89 south of Page after a 2013 landslide.