Kawneer Company, Inc., an Alcoa business and the leading manufacturer of architectural aluminum products and systems for commercial construction, dedicated a new floodwall at their Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania facility, heralding greater levels of safety and stability for employees and customers.
The floodwall, designed to protect the facility and surrounding area from potential storm damage, was funded through a partnership between the town of Bloomsburg, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development, local and state government and Alcoa. More than 280 guests, including Pennsylvania State Senator John Gordner, Pennsylvania State Representative Dave Millard, Bloomsburg Mayor Dan Knorr, Columbia County Commissioners, local business owners and Kawneer customers and employees, attended the dedication ceremony.
“Bloomsburg is an invaluable flagship location for Kawneer North America. One in every three doors you walk through in the U.S. are Kawneer doors, and, more often than not, those doors were manufactured here in Bloomsburg,” said Diana Perreiah, President, Kawneer North America and Vice President, Alcoa Building and Construction Systems, “This floodwall is the result of strong community partnerships and mutual investment. Thank you to all parties involved for helping us provide our employees a safer, more stable place to work and ensuring our customers continue to receive the Kawneer products and services they depend on.”
In September 2011, Tropical Storm Lee brought heavy rainfall and historic flooding to Pennsylvania, resulting in extensive damage to the Bloomsburg community and Kawneer’s Bloomsburg facility, which employs approximately 395 people. Kawneer and Alcoa immediately responded, developing a recovery plan and offering financial support to the community through the Alcoa Foundation. Employees worked diligently to address the challenges presented by the flood, assessing options and instituting processes to address order fulfillment while actively participating in rebuilding their community.
“It took a lot of hard work, resources and time to make this floodwall and recovery happen. I would be remiss if I didn’t thank our Bloomsburg employees and our loyal customers for their patience, diligence and commitment to one another, our company and to the Bloomsburg community which helped us build a safer and more stable facility,” said Glen Morrison, President, Alcoa Building and Construction Systems.
To learn more about Kawneer, please visit www.kawneer.com.
About Kawneer
With more than 100 years of innovation and experience, Kawneer North America is headquartered in Norcross, GA, and is the leading manufacturer of architectural aluminum products and systems for the commercial construction industry. Kawneer is a part of Alcoa’s global Building and Construction Systems (BCS) business unit. In 2010 Traco, a leading manufacturer of windows for more than 65 years, joined Alcoa BCS as a division of Kawneer. Alcoa BCS manufactures and markets architectural systems and products in North America, Europe and Asia. Alcoa is the world’s leading producer of primary and fabricated aluminum as well as the world’s largest miner of bauxite and refiner of alumina, and has been active in all major aspects of the industry for the past 125 years. For more information on Kawneer or its products, please visit www.kawneer.com.
Related Stories
| Oct 13, 2010
Community center under way in NYC seeks LEED Platinum
A curving, 550-foot-long glass arcade dubbed the “Wall of Light” is the standout architectural and sustainable feature of the Battery Park City Community Center, a 60,000-sf complex located in a two-tower residential Lower Manhattan complex. Hanrahan Meyers Architects designed the glass arcade to act as a passive energy system, bringing natural light into all interior spaces.
| Oct 13, 2010
Community college plans new campus building
Construction is moving along on Hudson County Community College’s North Hudson Campus Center in Union City, N.J. The seven-story, 92,000-sf building will be the first higher education facility in the city.
| Oct 13, 2010
County building aims for the sun, shade
The 187,032-sf East County Hall of Justice in Dublin, Calif., will be oriented to take advantage of daylighting, with exterior sunshades preventing unwanted heat gain and glare. The building is targeting LEED Silver. Strong horizontal massing helps both buildings better match their low-rise and residential neighbors.
| Oct 12, 2010
Richmond CenterStage, Richmond, Va.
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Bronze Award. The Richmond CenterStage opened in 1928 in the Virginia capital as a grand movie palace named Loew’s Theatre. It was reinvented in 1983 as a performing arts center known as Carpenter Theatre and hobbled along until 2004, when the crumbling venue was mercifully shuttered.
| Oct 12, 2010
Cell and Genome Sciences Building, Farmington, Conn.
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Silver Award. Administrators at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington didn’t think much of the 1970s building they planned to turn into the school’s Cell and Genome Sciences Building. It’s not that the former toxicology research facility was in such terrible shape, but the 117,800-sf structure had almost no windows and its interior was dark and chopped up.
| Oct 12, 2010
Full Steam Ahead for Sustainable Power Plant
An innovative restoration turns a historic but inoperable coal-burning steam plant into a modern, energy-efficient marvel at Duke University.
| Sep 13, 2010
Second Time Around
A Building Team preserves the historic facade of a Broadway theater en route to creating the first green playhouse on the Great White Way.
| Sep 13, 2010
Committed to the Core
How a forward-looking city government, a growth-minded university, a developer with vision, and a determined Building Team are breathing life into downtown Phoenix.
| Aug 11, 2010
New data shows low construction prices may soon be coming to an end
New federal data released recently shows sharp increases in the prices of key construction materials like diesel, copper and brass mill shapes likely foreshadow future increases in construction costs, the Associated General Contractors of America said. The new November producer price index (PPI) report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics provide the strongest indication yet that construction prices are heading up, the association noted.