ENR New York is pleased to announce this year’s regional Contractor of the Year: Gilbane Building Company! The following are a few reasons for the firm's selection, and we'll publish a comprehensive feature on the company in the July issue of ENR New York and New England.
In 2020, Gilbane celebrated its 150th anniversary, having transformed from a two-man carpentry start-up in Rhode Island into a global firm with a full slate of construction and facilities-related services. During the pandemic, the company’s New York regional revenue reached $1.56 billion, an increase from $1.49 billion a year earlier. The firm also says its overall revenue reached an all-time high of $6.5 billion in 2020.
Gilbane, which has more than 2,800 employees and 45 office locations worldwide, has been delivering construction services in New York state since 1949 and in New Jersey since 1966. With three full-service business units in New York City, upstate New York and New Jersey, it has 14.7 million sq ft of work currently under way: high-profile, as well as smaller scale and highly customized, projects for clients across multiple market sectors throughout both states.
Notable projects in the region include the Hudson Yards Observation Deck visitor “experience” and restaurant, renovation of the Brooklyn Public Library, the New York City Dept. of Design & Construction’s COVID Centers of Excellence, construction of the 34-story One Willoughby Square in Brooklyn, renovation and expansion of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo; construction of The Wynn Hospital of the Mohawk Valley Health System in Utica, multiple programs for the Olympic Regional Development Authority (ORDA) in Lake Placid, a new flagship laboratory for Quest Diagnostics in Clifton, N.J., and The Standard at New Brunswick, a new residential development in New Brunswick, NJ.
Also in 2020, Gilbane began using artificial intelligence and machine learning to track productivity on site. On a series of New York projects including The Wynn Hospital at Mohawk Valley Health System, Gilbane partnered with Disperse, which takes construction site data and, using AI and machine-learning, digitizes and processes that data to take “the visual documentation to a whole new level,” integrating data with schedules and drawings, mapping data against components and quantifying it over time.
“This provides our project teams with indisputable project records to assess where they are against planned progress and provides evidence of performance week to week,” Gilbane says, and the “system gives our teams a steady and reliable flow of accurate data and machine-learning analytics that shows gaps and stimulates productivity improvements.”
Finally, Gilbane is demonstrably committed to diversity. The firm has a minimum goal of using 20% goal of MWBE firms on all projects, whether or not there are client requirements, and will increase this to 25% in 2022 in New York City. The company is also part of the “Time for Change” zero tolerance committee against hate, racism and bias.
