New York Region's Best Projects Display Innovation, Quality

The massive renovation of the historic Tammany Hall into 44 Union Square East earned a Best Project award in the renovation/ restoration category and one for Excellence in Safety.

*PHOTO BY CHRISTOPHER PAYNE/ESTO*

ENR New York’s annual Best Projects competition received 65 entries for 2020, including those from teams that managed to complete projects amid COVID-19-spurred closures of nonessential construction sites in New York and New Jersey. The high quality of this year’s submissions continued a long tradition for ENR New York and resulted in 26 projects receiving 30 awards, including Best Projects, awards of merit and Excellence in Safety honorees.

Topping the list as Project of the Year is 53 West 53, a 730,000-sq-ft residential tower atop a museum whose innovative engineering and construction has enabled it to rise 1,050 ft on a footprint of only 17,013 sq ft. The structure, already iconic on the Manhattan skyline, also earned a Best Project nod for residential/hospitality.

For the first time, ENR New York also named Project of the Year finalists for 2020. They were: LaGuardia Airport, Terminal B Arrivals and Departures Hall (Headhouse), which won as Best Project in the airport/transit category, and the David H. Koch Center for Cancer Care at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, which was named Best Project in health care. The selections could not have happened without the tireless efforts of this year’s panel of judges. Theirs was no small task. Jurists recused themselves when a project presented a conflict of interest. The judges were:

Dawid Ditrich, lead technical instructor, TSC Training Academy

Nenad Gucunski, chairman and professor of civil and environmental engineering, Rutgers University

Michael Horodniceanu, IDC Foundation chair in design and construction and professor, New York University Tandon School of Engineering

Craig Hughes, chief inspector, New York City Dept. of Buildings

Melissa Johnson, founder and president, Melissa Johnson Associates, and a 2020 ENR New York Top Young Professional

Peter Marchetto, president of building construction, AECOM

Feniosky A. Pena-Mora, executive director and engineering professor, Columbia University

All winning projects will be recognized on Nov. 16 at the ENR New York Regional Best Projects virtual awards event, along with the year’s Firms of the Year and Legacy Award recipient from New York and New Jersey. The cyber celebration is free to attend, with more detail available at https://www.enr.com/enr-best-projects-awards/new-york.