R.C. Mathews Contractor, a commercial building contractor founded in Nashville 75 years ago, received two national awards from Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc. (ABC) for its work on Belmont University’s Janet Ayers Academic Center.
The Ayers Academic Center is Belmont’s largest building, which presented demanding design, execution and timeline challenges. For its management and execution of the Center’s construction, R.C. Mathews Contractor was recognized by ABC, a national trade group, with the Eagle Award and the Greener Tomorrow Award.
R.C. Mathews Contractor is the only Tennessee recipient of the 2016 Eagle Award, which identifies excellence in construction. It is one of only three nationally to win the 2016 Greener Tomorrow Award that acknowledges the best in environmentally responsible construction practices.
“My grandfather founded R.C. Mathews Contractor 75 years ago and since then our company has built numerous landmark projects that have helped Nashville grow into the city that it is today,” said Walker Mathews, president of R.C. Mathews. “The Ayers Academic Center is the perfect representation of today’s Nashville. It wraps a modern facility in timeless design for an academic institution that is central to our city’s vitality and the next generation. It does all this while being incredibly environmentally friendly, reflecting Nashville’s move into the future as a green city.”
R.C. Mathews Contractor earned the Eagle Award in the “Institutional over $25 Million” category. The construction constraints that R.C. Mathews Contractor overcame contributed in large part to receiving the award. Major elements include: the excavation of a five-story, below-grade parking garage that is within 20 feet of an adjacent below-grade garage; construction of above-ground connections between the Ayers Academic Center and the neighboring academic building; and one of the largest installations of an advanced, chilled beam HVAC system.
R.C. Mathews Contractor also won nationally recognized Eagle Awards in 2001 and 2003 for the Frist Center of the Visual Arts and for the renovation of the Montgomery County Courthouse, respectively.
The Greener Tomorrow Award goes to just three companies from the pool of Eagle Award winners. The Ayers Academic Center achieved LEED Platinum Certification, the first new construction building in Nashville to do so, as well as the first new construction University building in the state receive the rating.
