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St. Charles, MO, February 12, 2007 – SCI Engineering, Inc. (SCI) received a Grand Award in the Environmental Category for the company’s brownfields work on the Gaslight Square redevelopment project. The Engineering Excellence Awards Competition is sponsored each year by the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) to recognize notable engineering projects in 10 different categories.

As a Grand Award recipient from the Missouri Chapter of ACEC, SCI is permitted to submit the project to ACEC’s national competition. SCI received the award at the ACEC/MO Awards Banquet on February 10 at the Doubletree Hotel & Conference Center in Chesterfield, Missouri. SCI Vice President and Director of Environmental Services Karl Ruhmann, P.E., R.G. accepted the award on behalf of the company.

SCI served as primary environmental engineering consultant in the redevelopment of a block in midtown St. Louis known as Gaslight Square. Starting in 2003 and continuing into 2006, SCI was contracted by Gaslight Square LLC to perform a wide range of consulting services, including: Phase One and Phase Two Environmental Site Assessments (ESAs); negotiation and closure of the site through the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) Brownfields/Voluntary Cleanup Program (B/VCP); geotechnical investigations; and construction testing and observation services. Through most of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the St. Louis neighborhood called Gaslight Square was known nationally as an entertainment district with clubs, coffeehouses, bars, and restaurants, and was a focal point of the city’s nightlife. After deteriorating throughout the ‘70s and into the ‘90s, the 4200 block of Olive Street between North Boyle Avenue and Whittier Avenue has been revitalized with a residential development consisting of one- to three-story condominiums, townhouses, and single-family homes. As a sign of how quickly the area turned around, the block that was blighted in 2003 was featured as the CITIRama site in October, 2004 by the Home Builders Association (HBA) of St. Louis, and mostly completed and inhabited in 2005. The event featured just five single-family homes and seven townhouses available for viewing, but it attracted more than 20,000 people during its three-week run, making it the best-attended single site home tour event ever held in the city.

Redeveloping the site as a new urban residential neighborhood has demonstrated what is possible with an older brownfield area that had been environmentally impacted. The site has proven to be a huge success and is widely noted as proof that new higher-end residential construction can be successful within the city.

The redevelopment of Gaslight Square has added approximately 80 new housing units of different types to the city’s overall supply. It has attracted home builders from the county to return to the city. It has helped to reverse the population decline that the city has experienced for the last 50 years and get people interested in urban living again. It has provided the region with a much-needed boost in home values, almost doubling the values in the immediate area within the past four years. The project has re-built and stabilized a key link between Grand Center and the Central West End. What had been a significant St. Louis neighborhood with national name recognition has been saved and, in the process, Gaslight Square has helped to restore a sense of pride to Midtown St. Louis, serving as a catalyst for growth that is continuing today.