ENR New York and New England’s regional Best Projects winners all have one thing in common—submissions that highlight the project team’s ability to collaboratively meet challenges with solutions that have lessons for the entire industry.

Winning submissions represent 29 projects in 17 main construction categories in the New York region, which includes New Jersey, and 23 projects in 14 main categories in New England, which includes Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont.

Industry judges selected the winners after reviewing nearly 80 total entries. Projects were evaluated on a team’s ability to overcome challenges, display design and construction quality, execute work safely, contribute to industry innovation and best practices and benefit the community. All projects had to be completed between May 1, 2023, and May 31, 2024.

Judges did not vote in categories that included projects in which they or their firms were involved. This year’s New York judges in the main categories were Mara Johnston, managing principal of Keystone Global, and Schillivia Baptiste, president and CEO of Leland Baptiste.

This year’s New England main category judges were Scott Bascom, associate architect at Boston-based design firm Sasaki, and Aidan Sullivan, assistant project manager at Consigli Construction.

Simply the Best

The judges also selected one project from each region as Project of the Year.

In New York, the winner was South Fork Wind, which also was named a Best Project in the energy/industrial category. The project marks a significant milestone in the state’s renewable energy transition.

Located off the coast of Long Island, the project is designed to meet growing regional energy demands by producing enough clean power for about 70,000 homes with state-of-the-art wind turbines that are not visible from East Hampton beaches. A single transmission line delivers the generated power to the East Hampton Substation.

The New England Project of the Year was the Knox Residences in Springfield, Mass. Also selected as a Best Project in the residential/hospitality category, it is part of a broader neighborhood initiative that aims to reverse years of decay, high crime and a low inventory of family-friendly communities.

The redevelopment preserves a historically significant structure that had experienced significant deterioration. Working within a confined budget that required multiple streams of financing, the team still had strong participation of minority and women-owned subcontractors that totaled more than $13 million of project work.

Boston Logan International Airport Terminal E Modernization was named an ENR New England Project of the Year Finalist and Best Project award winner in the airport/transit category.
Photo courtesy AECOM

Special Recognition

Special recognition was also given to project teams for safety and sustainability innovations.

This year, Bob McCall, director of safety for Master Builders’ Association of Western Pennsylvania, selected safety awards for both regions.

For ENR New York, he selected the Google renovation of St. John’s Terminal in Manhattan for the Excellence in Safety award. The Best Project winner in the interior/tenant improvement category, it tallied the lowest recordable incident/injury rate in Google’s global construction portfolio over 2 million worker hours. The team managed this feat despite safety management that was challenged by workspace issues and the variety of work scopes for each floor.

The Excellence in Safety award winner in New England was the Gordon Center for Creative and Performing Arts at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. Located in a heavily trafficked area, the project team prioritized campus safety and developed a specific plan to safeguard pedestrians. The project site required the team to install foundations and utilities on bedrock. Coordination with the college helped ensured safety during the project.

Judging the sustainability awards for both regions were Josh Rollins, pursuit management marketing director at Suffolk, and Nate Russo, civil engineer at AECOM. They scored projects based on overall sustainability strategy, choice of materials and energy savings. Major sustainability designations such as LEED and WELL were preferred but not required for recognition.

New York’s Excellence in Sustainability winner was 345 Hudson Decarbonization – Phase 1 in New York City. The building retrofit deploys thermal networking to reduce energy demand, eliminate carbon emissions and avoid penalties under Local Law 97, which requires most buildings over 25,000 sq ft to meet new energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions limits as of 2024. The masonry office building has steam and cast iron radiators that wrap around each floor. During tenant turnovers, crews installed heat pumps on each floor that exchange energy.

The Brown University Brook Street Residence Hall in Providence won the Excellence in Sustainability award for New England. The mass timber project has all-electric systems and relies on renewable power sources to move the university toward its goal of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040. Design and construction techniques minimize environmental impact and maximize resource efficiency. Designed to LEED Gold certification, the project includes renewable resource construction materials and onsite stormwater treatment systems.

Turn the page to learn more about this year’s winners.