New York City officials at the end of February touted the completion of major upgrades to the Mark A. Constantino Judicial Center in Staten Island. After years of planning and construction work, the building has a new roof and a rebuilt facade, among other upgrades. The facility houses the Staten Island county clerk, the office of the Richmond County district attorney and other court-related offices.
“This $10.7 million project ensured the long-term viability of the … Center by rehabbing the façade as well as multiple roof levels, the parking lot and a vehicular ramp,” Thomas Foley, a commissioner for the city’s Department of Design and Construction, said Feb. 25.
Planning for the project began in 2016, when the city brought in a consultant to conduct an assessment of the 63-year-old building, which had leaks in the roof and facade, according to information the city provided.
If it had started today, the project would have moved more quickly, Foley said.
State lawmakers passed legislation at the end of 2023 to let the Department of Design and Construction switch from the city’s longtime system of contracting to the manager-build method, which supporters say is much faster. “In the future, we will be able to complete projects like these faster and more efficiently,” Foley said.
Under manager-build, designers and builders meet early in the project process to map out the work that needs to be done and how to do it. Prior to adoption of the method, the city was using a contracting process in which the contractor couldn’t get involved until after the design was completed.
“Designers and builders have a harder time working together” when they can’t begin collaborating early in the process, says information DDC provided. The department manages capital construction projects on behalf of the city’s other agencies in all five boroughs.
“There is no reason building a bathroom should take years and cost millions,” New York City Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi said last year, when officials and the building industry were pushing to speed up use of the new contracting method.
DCC got a chance to test the manager-build method during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it needed to build testing and vaccination centers quickly. The agency also used it to build asylum centers quickly in response to what city officials call the migrant crisis, a two-year period beginning in 2022 when 210,000 people from outside the United States arrived in the city.
“Every time DDC has been given the chance to use common-sense design and construction practices, we knock it out of the park,” Foley said last May. “We build faster and more efficiently.”
The centerpiece of the Constantino Judicial Center project is the replacement of the roof and the reconstruction of the building’s south façade. Upgrades were also made to the roof parapets, copings and railings. The work included enhancements to the roof drainage system and to the steel relieving angles and lintels. In addition, masonry on the building surfaces, rooftop bulkhead and the entrance were restored and the parking lot was renovated, according to the city.
“The roof had leaks all over, so we did four roofs because the building has different elevations in different areas,” Sylvester Kodua, DDC’s deputy director of public buildings, told Facilities Dive.
A design consultant was brought in at the beginning of the process to determine what the scope of the work should be, Kodua said. That process took about a year.
There was “a case study by the consultant to figure out exactly what needs to be done,” he said. “They presented that to the client agency, [the Department of Citywide Administrative Services]. It showed everything that needed to be done and what it costs.”
One hurdle, once construction started in 2022, was the discovery of a five-foot gap below part of the driveway after workers removed a drainage pipe.
“We were supposed to work on a slope … for the parking lot,” Kodua said. “When we started digging, there was a pipe underneath that we needed to replace for the drainage. We found out that there was a 5-foot gap in between the existing driveway and the gravel. So now you have to remove all this…. You have to backfill. Then you have to stabilize it in order to build your driveway. If not, you can’t do any of [the other work], and that consumes time.”
No matter how much you plan, problems always appear after construction starts, Kodua said. “There’s no such thing as routine,” he said, “because what’s on paper is not always what’s in the field.”
But there could be fewer surprises going forward if the designer and builder can start working together earlier in the process, supporters say.
“The construction manager-build method of contracting … will lead to faster projects, fewer delays and happier taxpayers,” Foley said.
