Leopardo wins award with Hanover Park police HQ

HOFFMAN ESTATES — The Hanover Park Police headquarters built by Leopardo Co. was recently awarded ENR Midwest Best Project of 2012 in the Government/Public Building category.

Engineering News-Record is the construction industry’s leading source of news and information. According to the magazine, a panel of industry peers “selected winning projects on the basis of design and construction quality, innovation, safety and the ability of their project teams to overcome unique challenges. All winning projects will compete against winners from eight other regions in ENR’s National Best of the Best Projects 2012 competition.”

Leopardo completed the 63,000-square-foot police headquarters for the village of Hanover Park early in 2012. The facility includes an indoor firing range, jail, evidence processing, emergency operations center and training room, community room and an enclosed garage for up to 27 vehicles. Dewberry, the architect for the project, described the building’s exterior as “a palette of brick, precast concrete, metal panels and glass.”

A distinguishing characteristic of this project is its unique safety record. Leopardo took the initiative to partner with OSHA, allowing open-access to the government agency in order to achieve the absolute highest levels of construction safety. More than 400 site-specific safety orientations were conducted, 149 safety inspections and 10,000 safety observations performed. As a result, after more than 100,000 total work hours, the project’s incident rate was almost 30 percent below the national average.