The United States Green Building Council has announced the recipients of the 2010 LEED for Homes Awards recognizing projects, developers and home builders who have demonstrated leadership in the residential building marketplace. Image courtesy of Bernstein Associates The General Colin L. Powell Apartments located in the South Bronx was awarded the Outstanding Affordable Housing award by the USGBC. Three projects in the New York area were recognized in such categories as affordable housing projects and developers. Blue Sea Development of New York was honored with the Outstanding Affordable Developer award for the LEED Platinum General Colin L. Powell Apartments, Morrisinia

Bovis Lend Lease has agreed to a $5-million settlement with the city to settle a civil case contending that the firm had overcharged it on more than 100 municipal projects over the past decade, says a Jan. 5 announcement by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. According to the announcement, Bovis charged the city for overtime and extra pay to foremen on jobs “for which they had not worked.” Bloomberg and city Dept. of Investigation Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn said the case was based on an analysis of records “and practices” on more than 100 city-funded jobs that Bovis had managed between

The American Institute of Architects New York Chapter Global Dialogues Committee�s Haiti Housing Collaborative, a diverse volunteer organization, assisted by EnviroSynergy and made up of New York City based Haitian-American and international architects, planners, and individuals announced that they have selected twelve designs for permanent housing for people left homeless by the January 12, 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Rendering courtesy of AIANY Hayes of the USA�s submitted design for permanent housing in Haiti. The chosen twelve designs were submitted by a team consisting of Estela Alvarado, Alexander D�az and Gaspar Fern�ndez of Spain; Timothy Bell of the USA; Joshua Doyle

New York-based Perkins Eastman and Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn Architects, two international design and architecture firms have announced that they will be merging their practices, totaling nearly 600 employees. div id="articleExtrasA" div id="articleExtrasB" div id="articleExtras" EE&K specializes in the conceptualization and design of large-scale mixed-use urban projects and brings a 50-year record of innovative educational facility design, a distinguished portfolio of historic preservation and adaptive reuse as well as a growing practice in China and Vietnam. Perkins Eastman is one of the top architectural firms in the world and will bring added strength to EE&K’s core interests including campus planning

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has approved $2 million in planning work for a future 25,000-sq-ft terminal expansion of Stewart International Airport. div id="articleExtrasA" div id="articleExtrasB" div id="articleExtras" The planning and design for the phased terminal expansion is being conducted by the Port Authority who first took on the operation of the airport in 2007 and is expected to be completed by December 2011. The first phase of the planned expansion will consist of expanding the north side of the terminal to construct an adequate federal inspection service facility and to increase overall capacity as well

Related Links: How To Win Work in 2011 Among the darkest clouds looming over 2011 for the New York region’s construction industry is the state of subcontractors – and how many of them may falter this year. “The subcontractor community is starting to see the wear and tear of this recession,” says Joe Hogan, v.p. for building services at the Associated General Contractors of New York in Albany. “The risk of subs defaulting on projects is getting greater, and [general] contractors now have to look for signs of stress.” Contractors and subcontractors generally aren’t the best judges of their own

The City University of New York and NYU Langone Medical Center are joining together to create a 25,000-sq-ft, state-of-the-art urban health science simulation training facility located on the third floor of Bellevue Hospital at 462 First Avenue. Rendering courtesy of CUNY The 25,000-sq-ft New York Simulation Center for Health Sciences will be located on the third floor of Bellevue Hospital at 462 First Avenue and is scheduled to open in September 2011. div id="articleExtrasA" div id="articleExtrasB" div id="articleExtras" The New York Simulation Center for Health Sciences is being designed by Ballinger Associates of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and will feature eight simulation

Spector Group, a New York-based architecture and design firm has been named executive architect for the renovation of a 260,000-sq-ft full-service Volkswagen dealership. div id="articleExtrasA" div id="articleExtrasB" div id="articleExtras" Once home to Potamkin General Motors, the existing building located at 798 11th Avenue in Manhattan is being transformed to fit the national image of Volkswagen Group of America’s dealerships with the help of Volkswagen’s design/brand architect, Detroit-based Cityscape Architects, Inc. as well as Audi’s design/brand architect, New York-based CR Studio, Architects, PC. The new facility will occupy six floors of space, along with the building’s roof and a portion of

Construction has begun on Binghamton University’s $30 million New York State Center of Excellence in Small Scale Systems Integration and Packaging building which will support more than 180 jobs per year throughout the construction process. Rendering courtesy cf Binghamton University The new two-story, 114,000-sq-ft Center of Excellence is expected to be completed by January 2013. div id="articleExtrasA" div id="articleExtrasB" div id="articleExtras" The new two-story, 114,000-sq-ft, metal and stone Center of Excellence facility will feature open laboratory space, a symposium hall and offices providing space for the expansion and consolidation of Small Scale Systems Integration and Packaging and its team of

While some signs suggest the economic downturn has reached bottom, construction activity in the New York region still languishes with little optimism for a quick rebound. Photo courtesy of Connecticut DOT Construction is ongoing at the Q-Bridge (Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge) in Connecticut. Photo courtesy of MTA/Patrick J. Cashin Much of the New York Building Congress’ projections for 2012 include additional funding for MTA projects, such as the Second Avenue line now under construction but not scheduled to complete until 2016. “It’s very much a mixed picture in terms of what to expect,” says Kenneth D. Simonson chief economist of