Webb of Skanska USA speaks at ULI event

Tom Webb, senior VP and general manager for Skanska USA's N.Y. region, joined Maryanne Gilmartin, executive vice president of commercial and residential development for Forest City Ratner Cos. (FCRC), Richard Anderson, president of the New York Building Congress, Louis Coletti, president and chief executive officer of the Building Trades Employers' Association, and Joseph Ienuso, executive VP of facilities for Columbia University, and spoke at the Urban Land Institute's (ULI) most recent event: Construction and Methodologies: Implications in Economics and Productivity. At the event, panelists discussed new technologies and mythologies that are able to lower costs, deliver more predictable results in a shorter time frame, which are currently transforming the construction industry. For example, Skanska's Webb and FCRC's Gilmartin discussed B2, which is one of the U.S.' largest modular buildings. Together, Skanska and FCRC created FC + Skanska Modular, LLC (FCS Modular), and are building B2's modular components in a 100,000 s/f space located in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which will be shipped and assembled to the Atlantic Yards site. Webb said that modular construction is a great solution as clients look to build more efficiently, and Columbia's Joseph Ienuso added that the reality (of modular construction) is a new business for the city.