Park Work Earns Colorado Firm Association's Top Award

Colorado's top landscape architects selected Loveland-based ECI Site Construction Management as 2008 Contractor of the Year for the company's work on Front Range parks and sports complexes.

In addition, ECI's Spring Canyon Community Park project in southwest Fort Collins received a separate award for outstanding park design from the Colorado Parks and Recreation Association.

The Contractor of the Year award came from the Colorado chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects, following nominations from Fort Collins-based BHA Design and Design Concepts of Lafayette, two landscape architecture firms that have collaborated with ECI.

"ECI exceeds what is expected from a general contractor," BHA principal Roger Sherman said in his nomination. "For 25-plus years, the company has offered forward-thinking construction and project management to Colorado's landscape and park-construction industry."

BHA partnered with ECI as the landscape architect on the $12.5 million Spring Canyon project. The state parks association said in presenting the Columbine Award for design that the park's success lay in integrating with its natural surroundings.

"The aesthetics of the park are stunning with the mix of natural landscaping on the canyon walls, islands of manicured turf, planter beds, sandstone rock, open rural feeling and views of the adjacent foothills," the association said.