The 20 young A/E/C industry professionals honored in ENR New York's Top 20 Under 40 competition have gone beyond the norm of excellence in their careers, showing leadership skills in their profession as well as a commitment to give back to their communities.
When Gale Grady, district manager at PCL Civil Constructors, discusses Florida's Dept. of Transportation's information technology system, it sounds a lot like sailing: To take advantage of a beautiful day, or an interesting contract up for bid, a contractor connects to an online program that allows digital submissions, or even multiple resubmissions if modifications are necessary, before bids close. Like a sailboat catching a good wind, the e-bid system propels the contractor through a streamlined process fairly quickly and pretty smoothly. "This is far and above what manual submissions are like," says Grady, whose Tampa, Fla.-based firm has teamed up
Rendering courtesy of Related Cos The choice of a firm not based in New York City has angered some groups. Work on the $4-billion Hudson Yards project on Manhattan's West Side is set to start by late summer with the recently announced surprise choice of Tutor Perini, Sylmar, Calif., as prime contractor. New York City-based developers Related Cos. and Oxford Properties Group say they will form Hudson Yards Builders, a joint venture with Tishman Construction, to operate as owner-builder for the 26-acre site that is Manhattan's single-largest undeveloped property."[Tutor Perini] has an exemplary track record with complex, large-scale developments," says
The financial industry in the not-so-distant past drove much of the real estate development in New York City but the information technology and media industries are becoming more active players, said Adam B. Frazier, development manager at Boston Properties. On the tech front, Facebook and Google have each announced NYC expansion plans and Twitter opened its first office in the city last fall. Publishing giant Conde Naste, the anchor tenant for 1 World Trade Center accounting for 1.05 million sq ft of space in the tower, will reportedly soon sign on for an additional 133,000 sq ft, according to a
New York City's efforts to improve its educational system took the spotlight in Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s State of the City address earlier today, but job creation and a slew of construction projects planned or under way were also mentioned. The mayor, who spoke at Morris High School in the Bronx, praised the city’s 2011 accomplishments and set a broad list of goals in several areas including plans to streamline the building inspection process. "We've already opened an online hub for reviewing and approving digital construction plans," Bloomberg said, referring to the Dept. of Buildings' recently launched NYC Development Hub. "Now,
Rendering Courtesy of Cornell University The Cornell-Technion team will receive a 99-year lease and $100 million in city funding to help with building and related costs of the campus. New York City is on its way to becoming the "world's capital of technological innovation" with the selection of Cornell University and its partner Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to build a state-of-the-art applied sciences campus, says NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The Cornell-Technion team's proposal for an 11-acre, $2-billion-plus campus on Roosevelt Island beat out several other proposals under the mayor's Applied Sciences NYC initiative, which aims to boost the city's global
Mayor Michael Bloomberg confirmed yesterday that the 9/11 museum at the World Trade Center site will not open as scheduled on September 2012 due to financial disputes between the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum foundation. The Port Authority has previously claimed that the foundation owes it $300 million in cost overruns. However, the mayor, who is the foundation’s chairman, says that the Port Authority owes the foundation about $140 million. The foundation declined comment for this story, and the Port Authority did not return calls by press time."There's no
Repair work on the George Washington Bridge's 80-year-old suspender ropes is expected to begin in 2013 and last eight to nine years, says the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Earlier this month, the Port Authority approved a $15.5-million investment in planning funds for the work, only a portion of the $1-billion to $1.2-billion needed for the overall GWB planned project. The $15.5 million is earmarked for engineering and consulting services to prepare the suspender rope project for construction, says an agency spokesperson. "This is a big, important project because those ropes haven't ever been replaced," says Thomas
Cornell University and its partner, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, have won New York City's competition to build a $2-billion-plus applied sciences campus on Roosevelt Island, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced December 19. The partnership team beat out seven other bidders for the mayor’s Applied Sciences NYC initiative, launched last winter, which aims to build or expand a state-of-the-art engineering and applied sciences campus in the city. Rendering Courtesy of Cornell University The announcement follows Cornell’s news last week of a $350-million donation made to support the project. Cornell did not initially release the source of the donation, however, it recently confirmed
New York state's recently passed legislation to allow design-build delivery for certain infrastructure projects may be more a sign of the economically troubled times than a whole-hearted vote for this alternative project delivery system, say some industry players."We've seen quite a number of states in the last few years that have passed legislation allowing for public-private partnerships, and, if there are public-private partnership laws, design-build really has to be a part of them," says Mike Schneider, managing partner at Los Angeles-based InfraConsult LLC, which specializes in transportation consulting.Helping to drive this trend is the scarcity of federal infrastructure funding coupled
