Mulkey’s Work on WakeMed Raleigh Campus Addition Wins ACEC 2012 Honors Award for Engineering Excellence

Raleigh, NC—Nov. 23, 2011— The American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) of North Carolina awarded Mulkey Engineers and Consultants (Mulkey) the 2012 Honors Award for Engineering Excellence – Structural Systems for its work on the WakeMed Raleigh campus addition at its recent gala. Mulkey served as structural engineer for this award-winning, four-story, 185,000-square-foot addition to WakeMed’s Raleigh campus, housing the Children’s Hospital and state-of-the-art Heart Center. The expansion also included a spacious parking deck connected to the hospital with two pedestrian bridges.

Valoree Eikinas, PE, LEED® AP, Mulkey principal and the lead structural engineer on this project, had a prominent role in designing these intricate structures in an aggressive timeframe. Multiple connections to the existing building demanded design creativity to accommodate challenges such as an underground tunnel connection, multiple story connections and bridge connections.

This $99 million addition to WakeMed’s Raleigh campus houses the first children’s hospital in Wake County, serving more than 40,000 children annually. The WakeMed Heart Center, which boasts one of the nation’s highest volumes in  heart care, was designed to accommodate two additional floors, a new 1,215-space, six-story parking deck, and a connecting pedestrian bridge. The project features six canopies, two pedestrian bridges, two multi-story connectors to the existing facilities, and nine connections between the new and existing hospital.

The collaboration between the owner, architect, engineers, and contractors  was exemplary to successfully design and construct these engineering systems  within WakeMed’s short timeframe. BBH Design served as the architect and project  manager. Also on the team were Brasfield & Gorrie (contractor), Interior  Design Associates (interior designer), IES Engineers-Dewberry (mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineer), and ColeJenest & Stone (civil engineer  and landscape architect).

“With passion, commitment, and teamwork, this complex project was successfully designed and built. We are proud of our team’s achievement to meet WakeMed’s extraordinary deadline with excellence,” said Eikinas.