As Hurricane Irene rumbled toward the Northeast last August, crews at the Canoe Brook Water Treatment Plant in Millburn, N.J., scrambled to defend two potential casualties—the existing 90-year-old treatment plant and the construction site of its 47,000-sq-ft replacement. The crews knew that in the aftermath of major storms like Irene, which turned out to be one of worst in New Jersey's recent history, the potential for damage was high. The old facility near the banks of Canoe Brook, by its confluence with the Passaic River, wound up taking a direct hit. Waterways crested well above flood stage and swamped the
A distinctive feature of the new $825-million Barclays Center in Brooklyn is its "pre-weathered" facade of rusted steel panels that give the 675,000-sq-ft arena a been-there-all-along air. The unusual curtain wall of the structure, set to open this fall as the home for the National Basketball Association's Nets, has called for pioneering fabrication techniques on a project that has sometimes progressed by trial and error. The toughened exterior is also a fitting motif for a development that has endured and been shaped by a host of setbacks that included delays, budget cuts, design changes, legal battles and project team overhauls—not
Contractors, developers and designers face a new sort of project backlog across the New York region today: many hundreds of stalled sites that loom as a steep challenge to the industry. But while dormant sites stand as grim reminders of a weak economy, it is the jobs that are set to restart that are posing new problems. “I don't think we've ever seen the phenomenon at this scale,” says Richard Anderson, president of the New York Building Congress, of the high number of stalled sites.The 2008 market crash left a wave of project shutdowns in its wake, prompting the New
The merging of three key specialty firms, two with parallel origins, has launched an ascending star, GreenStar Services, that has kept both revenue and jobs flowing through the economic downturn.
Brad Perkins may run out of room for immigration stamps in his passport soon. Earlier this year, Perkins, a principal and founder of Perkins Eastman, New York City, set off on a 17-day tour to visit prospective and current clients. It took him from New York to Mumbai to Delhi, and briefly back to Mumbai before hitting Bangkok, Shanghai, Beijing, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and finally Seoul. Slide Show Rendering Courtesy Of Tishman Construction Caption: Abu Dhabi Golf Resort Tishman Construction is upgrading the Abu Dhabi Golf Club. I saw the inside of a lot of planes, he says.
NEW YORK DESIGNERS are as familiar with high-rise work as any designers in the world. So when a New York-based team was assembled to deliver a new 450-room hotel and convention facility in the heart of Hanois new central business district, a skyscraper seemed the obvious choice to reflect the rise of Vietnams bustling economy. But rather than go vertical, city officials asked developers of the new JW Marriott Hanoi to create a dramatic profile closer to grade. Rendering courtesy of Carlos Zapata Studio Caption: Low but large The 800,000-sq-ft building will employ nearly 70,000 cu yd of concrete, 9,500
Regular readers of Engineering News-Record are familiar with the big names in the construction industry that lead off our annual “Top” lists of firms ranked by revenue.
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
Related Links: How To Win Work in 2011 Few construction industry leaders believe they’ll see a turnaround in the first half of 2011 in the New York region. But they may see one an important milestone by midyear when 30 New York City labor-contractor collective bargaining agreements are set to expire on July 1. The current crop includes some of the biggest unions, including the steamfitters, operating engineers, carpenters, and laborers. And a standoff looms over costs, says Louis Coletti, president and CEO of the Building Trades Employers’ Association. Coletti says contractors are getting pressure from owners’ groups, such as
Early autumn of 2010 may well have been the rock bottom point for the New York region’s design and construction market. That’s when it was clear that its few active sectors – healthcare, K-12 schools, and higher education – had backlogs drying up and new projects delayed, adding to gloom that had already enveloped private commercial and residential construction. Healthcare sector work is keeping Turner Construction’s prospects for 2011 brighter than last year, thanks in part to the ongoing $440 million effort at the University Medical Center at Princeton in Plainsboro Township, N.J. The 636,000-sq-ft, 269-bed replacement hospital will have
