With the advent of LEED, construction managers are viewing the dumpster in a new light. Construction wastes, once relegated to landfills, are now recycled or reused to earn LEED credits and comply with sustainable construction initiatives. To meet waste management goals, project teams are employing new strategies and setting up tracking systems to document how wastes are recycled and reused. Photo: Croxton Collaborative Architects, PC Metal recycling area during the renovation of the New York offices of the National Resources Defense Council. The 8,800-sq.-ft. project, which is seeking LEED CI Platinum designation, utilized onsite separation to achieve a 96.5 percent

Several large public projects will continue to move forward in 2010, but with the economy still troubled and financial markets unyielding, private jobs are few. Yet they create opportunities for some firms as the industry right-sizes and moves forward. Turner Construction Co. recently completed construction on a cancer research center and a breast care and imaging center at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. “The name of the game for 2010 and beyond is to make sure you are well diversified in different product types,” says Pat Di Filippo, executive vice president of Turner Construction Co. in New York,

With the one-year anniversary of the $787-billion federal stimulus package only a month away, we thought we’d use this opportunity to avert our attention away from the doom and gloom predictions for the near future and highlight some of the region’s best stimulus-funded projects. Our parent publication, Engineering News-Record, recently profiled 22 of the nation’s most newsworthy and noteworthy stimulus projects in four categories: Transportation, Energy, Environment and Buildings. As it turns out, all three states in our region – New York, New Jersey and Connecticut – have active projects that made the cut. Those three projects are featured on

Our editors are everywhere — at all the industry events that matter most. When they're not speaking on panels, they're busy taking notes — and snapping photos — so they can inform their readers about what was said and who was there.

If the final version of the health care reform bill must resemble more closely what was passed by the Senate, as lawmakers on Capitol Hill say, the House's public option is probably out but the fate of the Senate's special provision targeting construction remains uncertain. Some contractor groups whose workers tend to be unionized are supporting the Senate's special construction industry amendment. After the Senate's approval of a measure that aims to make broad changes in the U.S. health-care system, the focus will turn to negotiations to reconcile the newly passed Senate bill with the version the House cleared in

KSS Architects of Philadelphia is designing a new addition and renovation for SUNY Cortland that will transform the school�s Studio West, located on the south entrance of the college campus. Rendering courtesy of KSS Architects LLP The new building for the School of Professional Studies will consolidate four of the six departments in the institution and include a courtyard and connector that will link the new building to the existing one. The project, which broke ground in October, will add a 20,000-sq-ft, two-story-addition to the east side of Studio West, a 43,000-sq-ft metal panel and red brick building originally constructed

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Robert C. Lieber and Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman and CEO Jay H. Walder recently announced the completion of the first phase of the Number 7 subway extension at the Hudson Yards in Manhattan which includes the second of two tunnel boring machines having reached the southern wall of the 34th Street Station cavern after mining a combined 2,900 ft from its starting point at 26th Street under 11th Avenue. The 7 Line extension project which is being managed by the MTA, will help transform the Hudson Yards into a 24-hour, mixed-use community

The Hobbs Court Apartments project located at 315 East 102nd Street in East Harlem, New York is now underway after Oldcastle Precast Building Systems of South Bethlehem, New York was awarded a $2.9 million contract. Rendering courtesy of MHG Architects PC The Hobbs Court project consists of twelve deteriorated walkup buildings which will be demolished along 102nd Street in East Harlem and replaced by 159 new, affordable units ranging from studio to three-bedroom duplex apartments. Oldcastle Precast Building Systems will be on the project team along with Lettire Construction, MHG Architects, and Robert Silman Associates all based in New York,

Aragon Construction of New York has recently begun construction on Columbia University�s newly leased space at 880 Third Avenue, Jack Resnick & Son�s 18-story office tower at the northwest corner of 53rd Street. Photo courtesy of Rubenstein Associates, Inc. Aragon and AIA Integrated Design Group created 14 treatment rooms, an elevator lobby, a waiting area, office rooms and technical rooms out of this 7,300-sq-ft midtown space renamed Gloria & Lewis Vision Center of Columbia University Medical Center. Columbia will utilize the entire 7,300-sq-ft second floor of the new midtown space for its Medical Center’s Department of Ophthalmology, which will operate

A joint venture of New York-based Turner Construction and STV has been awarded the $650 million construction management contract for the first phase of a new police academy for the New York City Police Department designed by Perkins+Will. City officials held a ceremonial groundbreaking on Wednesday. Perkins+Will / Consulting Architect: Michael Fieldman Architects The first phase will consist of a recruit academic building with an administration wing, a physical training complex with tactical demonstration gyms and a central utility plant that can accommodate future sequences as well as a field house, a running track, a parking lot and room to