Each year, ENR New York selects an organization as Owner of the Year. Owners are chosen for their commitment to excellence and innovative work throughout the region. In recent years, winners have included The State University of New York, Brookfield Office Properties and the Related Companies and Oxford Properties team.
This year, ENR New York has selected The New York City Department of Design and Construction as our 2016 Owner of the Year. As the city’s primary capital construction project manager, the DDC is responsible for projects such as the New York Police Academy, Glen Oaks Library and the Times Square Pedestrian Plaza. In addition to renovating and building new structures throughout New York, they are also improving the city in a number of other ways. The DDC has made the region more accessible to the disabled by installing over 40,000 wheelchair ramps, and worked to make New York safer by upgrading of thousands of fire hydrants.
Following Hurricanes Irene and Sandy, the DDC has partnered with the New York City Housing Recovery Office (HRO) for Build-it-Back (BIB), a program designed to reconstruct storm-damaged housing to withstand strong weather conditions in the future. This is just a sample of the tireless work done by the DDC to improve the quality of life in the city, which will be highlighted in the next issue of ENR New York.
We will also have a list of top construction starts for 2015 in New York and New Jersey. A preliminary list can be found here, and suggestions can be emailed to zevina@bnpmedia.com.