SESI Consulting Engineers celebrates 50 years as early-stage feasibility reshapes development
Manhattan, NY As SESI Consulting Engineers (SESI) marks its 50th anniversary, the firm is addressing a fundamental shift that is reshaping real estate development across the Northeast: engineering feasibility is increasingly determining whether projects move forward long before design or approvals begin.
Rising construction costs, evolving environmental regulations, infrastructure limitations, and extended municipal review timelines are driving developers to evaluate risk, cost, constructability, and sustainability at the earliest stages of site selection. As a result, geotechnical, environmental, and civil engineering input is now central to development decision-making, not simply design execution.
“For fifty years, service and solutions have been central to how SESI serves its clients,” said Jose Rodriguez, principal at SESI Consulting Engineers. “We take the time to understand each client’s goals, stand beside them through complex challenges, and apply our technical expertise and practical experience to create a clear path forward. That commitment has helped define our first fifty years and will continue to guide us into the future.”
Founded in 1976, SESI has supported development across industrial, multifamily, office, warehouse, and large-scale infrastructure projects throughout New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and surrounding markets. The firm’s work is grounded in an integrated model that brings geotechnical, environmental, and site civil engineering together to evaluate cost, risk, and constructability in parallel rather than sequentially.
Thomas Gallagher, managing engineer at The Morris Companies, said, “SESI’s ability to listen and re-think approaches has yielded practical solutions that allowed stalled projects in both the planning stage and the construction stage to proceed.”
This approach has become increasingly relevant as redevelopment and infill projects face greater regulatory scrutiny and infrastructure constraints. In many cases, utility capacity, stormwater requirements, environmental remediation, and flood-hazard compliance must now be evaluated before zoning approval or financing decisions can proceed.
“We approach every project as a true partner to our clients,” said Ahmed Baghdady, principal at SESI Consulting Engineers. “Our value goes beyond providing technical solutions – we take ownership of the challenges, understand the client’s priorities, and help guide decisions that deliver the best outcome for the project.”
SESI’s early-stage feasibility approach often includes evaluating multiple foundation systems, ground improvement strategies, and remediation options to determine the most viable path forward for a site. In one example, SESI implemented a ground improvement program using surcharge loading and dynamic compaction for a major industrial redevelopment in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, eliminating the need for deep foundation systems and contributing to significant capital cost savings while improving constructability.
In Fair Lawn, New Jersey, SESI’s geotechnical, environmental, and site civil teams supported the redevelopment of a former industrial property into a modern warehouse facility, coordinating remediation, permitting, and ground improvement in a constrained redevelopment environment.
The northeastern U.S. is a highly complex geotechnical region, with the New Jersey Meadowlands among the most challenging development zones. Subsurface conditions can include up to approximately 200 ft. of compressible marsh deposits, silts, clays, and variable fill materials. SESI has long supported projects requiring specialized ground improvement strategies to address these conditions. These solutions have enabled developers to reduce foundation risks, improve schedule certainty, and advance projects that might otherwise be considered unfeasible.
Clients working with SESI describe a shift in how engineering support is delivered during early-stage project evaluation.
“We needed a consultant that would function more like a business partner,” said Peter Palazzo, president of LRC Construction LLC. “Someone who matched our intensity and could respond with the urgency our business demands. SESI didn’t just deliver one limited service or another. They stayed engaged and adapted as our needs evolved. It felt like a true partnership rather than dealing with an outside consultant.”
As SESI enters its next chapter, the firm expects continued demand for early-stage engineering support in industrial redevelopment, data centers, multifamily housing, and infrastructure-adjacent development, where feasibility constraints increasingly shape investment decisions.