Bancroft Construction’s Greg Sawka sat quietly in the back of the room listening to the March 2 briefing about the $250-million Longwood Gardens makeover in Kennett Square, Pa. At the conclusion of the briefing, held in the New York City office of project architect WEISS/MANFREDI Architecture/Landscape/ Urbanism, he described to ENR his “once-in-a-lifetime” project—the transformation of the 17-acre heart of the 1,077-acre landmark garden, about 12 miles from Wilmington, Del.
The project is “unique in the built environment” for it combines landscape and horticulture into more than a dozen miniprojects, interconnected by common back-of-the-house infrastructure, all of which is hidden below grade, said Sawka, the construction manager’s president and CEO.