OMAHA, NE — The American Council of Engineering Companies has recognized two HDR projects in Nebraska with national awards. The Aquifer Storage and Recovery Program and HDR Global Headquarters both won Honor Awards.Hastings Utilities faced a difficult decision to provide a reliable, long-term drinking water source for the community. The wells in the city were seeing high levels of nitrate and uranium. A traditional solution — constructing a full-scale water treatment plant — would cost more than $100 million and severely impact community utility rates.

Along with innovative management strategies, alternative solutions were needed to meet current and future demands and provide clean drinking water. The Aquifer Storage and Recovery Program is a complex, innovative, and developing technology, requiring careful design and implementation to achieve desired results.

In the case of Hastings Utilities, the program treats highly concentrated nitrate water and injects it back into the aquifer upstream to create a water bubble with a lower nitrate concentration. This clean water bubble is projected to move downstream to the city’s drinking water wells, providing a clean drinking water source.

Aquifer storage and recovery is a subsurface storage technology, and is more resilient and protected than alternative and traditional storage technologies. The stored water is protected from evaporation, pollutants, and extreme weather. Appropriate site selection and aquifer availability are key to an aquifer storage and recovery project. The team used advanced hydrogeologic assessment techniques to select the site and water storage zones in the aquifer.

The project, under budget and delivered on time, provided a long-term, sustainable and cost-effective solution to the community’s drinking water needs.

HDR recently designed its new corporate headquarters in the Aksarben Village mixed-use development. Partnering with owner Noddle Companies, the 10-story multi-use building features a modern façade composed of a palette of clean, elegant materials.

The building’s unique form is chamfered at the corners to maximize square footage on upper floors while opening walkable space on the ground level to activate engagement with the surrounding neighborhood. Rather than having “front” and “back” sides, space that would have typically been used for a loading dock was reimagined as a retail alley that is home to stores, restaurants, and a food hall called The Inner Rail.

The interior of the building, including wayfinding and environmental graphics, continues a contemporary design aesthetic. Each of the eight office floors features collaboration areas, amenities, work stations, and offices that are flexible, expandable, and have access to daylight. To improve synergies between groups, pairs of floors are connected by an open and centrally located stairwell. An artistic installation off each elevator bay features routed acrylic panels of sophisticated iconography that represent the markets HDR serves.

The building was awarded a LEED New Construction v4 Gold-level rating and has earned a three-star rating from Fitwel — the highest rating possible for this certification that optimizes buildings to support occupant health.