Skanska is transforming the metropolis below ground, at grade and in the sky

Skanska has always called itself a city builder, but in New York, we are literally transforming the metropolis below ground, at grade and in the sky. Our development of the New Brooklyn Bridge Park is nearly complete and we recently completed the New Meadowlands stadium five months ahead of schedule. Our work on the PATH station at the World Trade Center and the new 2nd Avenue Subway will help New Yorkers move more efficiently around the city. By renovating the United Nations Headquarters, we will help bring modernity to one of the world's most important buildings. And we are doing it in innovative ways while being deeply committed to sustainability. In fact, the United States Green Building Council recently honored Skanska with its 2010 Leadership Award for the design and construction of green projects. For the Brooklyn Bridge Park, Skanska took an unused wasteland of concrete and transformed it into a bustling hub of green that allows city dwellers to enjoy canals, bike paths and piers. The views are also spectacular. When completed, the park will serve as one of the nation's most sustainable and eco-friendly parks. We used 300 pieces of granite from our work on the Roosevelt Island Bridge to create the "Granite Prospect" of Pier 1. The southern pine, old-growth lumber that we reclaimed from demolished structures on the site has been used for dam construction and numerous park benches. The roofs of the new buildings in the park are green and we devised an innovative storm-water retention system for irrigation purposes. While Skanska's building division was "greening up" the Brooklyn Bridge Park, our civil unit was improving the Brooklyn Bridge itself. Those renovations are expected to be complete by YEAR For the New Meadowlands Stadium, Skanska recycled 92% of the old stadium, just across the parking lot from the original. We helped boost the local economy by "buying local," spending approximately $680 million on goods, materials and local labor from the areas surrounding the new N.Y. Jets and N.Y. Giants stadium. Overall, we recycled 82% of the total waste generated during construction operations. In 2008, we broke ground on the steel and concrete foundation for the $1.4 billion Fulton Street Transit Center. Fulton Street will be Lower Manhattan's first major commuter rail hub. We are also behind the No. 7 Subway extension between Times Square and the West Side of Manhattan, as well as the Catskill Delaware Water Treatment Plant, which provides 9 million New Yorkers with 1.3 billion gallons of drinking water per day. Skanska isn't just building public works projects - we're figuring out how to fund them. We have been a leading voice on the benefits of Public Private Partnerships to help build billion dollar projects that recession-era governments need but cannot afford. P3s, as they are known around the world, essentially allow the private sector to fund, build, own and maintain large-scale infrastructure projects such as bridges or tunnels. Skanska has already demonstrated that P3s can help finance essential projects, and in areas beyond infrastructure. Our global partners have received acclaim for the The Barts and The Royal London Hospitals Project in the UK, one of the largest P3s in Europe. Earlier this year, Skanska was chosen to develop and build the New Karolinska Solna hospital in Sweden. The project will be Skanska's largest ever, and the first in health and medical care in Sweden to be financed by a P3. We hope to bring this same vision to New York. From my window here in the Empire State Building, a space that we fitted out to be LEED Platinum, the opportunities seem endless. Mike McNally is president and CEO of Skanska USA, New York, N.Y.