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How Design-Build Can Help Build NYC’s Future 

June 6, 2024
Raquel Diaz

When it comes to construction in New York City, time is of the essence, every square inch matters, and engaging the community is paramount.  One innovative project delivery method offers advantages that can significantly benefit our city’s public projects. 

The design-build method integrates a project’s design and construction phases under a single contract. This means a project’s designer and builder collaborate from the outset, yielding critical benefits for everyone involved. 

Early collaboration can help move a project faster and more efficiently by streamlined processes. This means our parks, libraries, schools, and other essential facilities can open sooner. When the City of New York needed to help meet the short- and long-term healthcare needs of those recovering from COVID-19, our team at Gilbane Building Company worked under a NYC Department of Design and Construction contract, leveraging alternative delivery methods to turn the first of three clinical sites in just four months, at least one year faster than the original construction schedule. 

Photo credit: Matthew Lapiska / NYC DDC

In an era of cost-escalations, global supply chain challenges, and inflation, design-build offers greater certainty and risk reduction, helping to deliver cost savings. With a clear project scope and early cost estimates, taxpayers get more value for their money. Additionally, with the designers and builders working closely, collaboration leads to better project outcomes, high-quality design and construction, and reduces the need for costly revisions. 

At Gilbane, we believe in maximizing our construction projects to benefit our communities. This means creating a strong community engagement program and a plan to boost local and diverse business and workforce participation in the project. The design-build approach enables more substantial community involvement and more opportunity for economic inclusion

For example, in our first community outreach event related to the Brownsville Girls Empowerment Center, we were joined by over 100 businesses and 50 job seekers. We’ve started pre-qualifying these businesses so they can explore opportunities to participate in the project, and we’ve already engaged two local minority and women-owned businesses. 

As New York City continues to rebound from the impacts of the global pandemic, embracing design-build is a strategic move. It’s time to build smarter, faster, and more efficiently. Let’s leverage this approach to construction to build transformative projects that uplift communities, impact lives, and leave a legacy for generations to come. 



About Authors
Raquel Diaz is Vice President and Public Sector Market Leader in New York City, and the executive sponsor for Gilbane’s Hispanic Employee Resource Group, HOLA. Raquel has an impressive 18-year career in construction, including a total portfolio of $2 billion and 2.7 million SF in project delivery. She has executed highly complex, transformative projects, for multiple clients, including the NYC Department of Design and Construction, NYU Langone Health, the New York City Economic Development Corporation, New York City Health + Hospitals, New York-Presbyterian and Memorial Sloan Kettering, among others. During 2020 and early 2021, Raquel served as project executive for the COVID-19 Centers of Excellence Program, a first-of-its-kind, fast-track construction of outpatient facilities to support COVID-19 survivors. She is involved in multiple organizations, such as the Society Hispanic Professional Engineers, Non-Traditional Employment for Women, NYC BuildsBio+, Gilbane’s Rising Contractor program and Gilbane’s Economic Inclusion Task Force. Raquel holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree from The City College of New York.
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