The Colorado Asphalt Pavement Association has awarded the city of Aurora and local paving contractor Martin Marietta with a “Best in Colorado” Asphalt Pavement Award in the Project Delivery category for the city’s 2023 Overlay Program, also known as the Build Up Aurora residential street maintenance program.

Build Up Aurora delivered on promises to address a top priority of residents by completing street maintenance work in 35 neighborhoods in 2023 to bring Aurora’s overall street network back to good condition—with a focus on neighborhood streets. With unanimous support from the Aurora City Council, an innovative funding solution enabled the work to occur without raising taxes.

The $36 million project consisted of milling and repaving 272 lane miles of roads throughout Aurora, including 1.8 million square yards of milling and 260,000 tons of paving. The project used at least two mill crews, two paving crews and one patch crew six days a week for five months. This production allowed for an average of 40,000 tons of paving completed per month over the project duration.

For the project to run smoothly and efficiently, each crew was assigned a phase to complete before moving onto the next one. By doing this, they were able to maintain milling and paving operations six days a week with no breaks in the schedule for five months consecutively.

According to officials with the Colorado Asphalt Pavement Association, this was a huge feat and a testament to the success of the project, noting that the award was well deserved due to the complexity of delivery of such a massive project with so many moving parts.

“This award is well deserved and speaks to the commitment to quality from Martin Marietta and the excellence in oversight and partnering from the city of Aurora," said Tom Peterson, executive director of the Colorado Asphalt Pavement Association. "It was truly a very unique and very successful project.”

The city of Aurora and Martin Marietta received the award at a dinner Feb. 6 as part of the 51st Annual Rocky Mountain Asphalt Conference and Equipment Show.

The Colorado Asphalt Pavement Association’s “Best in Colorado” Quality Awards are presented annually to recognize the quality efforts of asphalt producers, contractors, and agencies/owners in the state. The association received 49 nominations for this year’s awards, and 13 projects were selected for “Best in Colorado” awards.

For more information on Build Up Aurora, visit EngageAurora.org/BuildUpAurora.