Completing the project five months ahead of its already aggressive schedule, Frank Falciani, Skanska senior vice president and project executive, talks about building the most expensive stadium in the world.
The new Meadowlands Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., home to both the New York Jets and the New York Giants, is reportedly the most expensive stadium ever built. Consider that the new Yankee Stadium cost $1.5 billion and serves just one team and the estimated construction cost of $1.6 billion makes the New Meadowlands seem like an amazing deal.
But you don’t have to go to that extreme to understand how well the owner, the joint LLC formed by the two teams and called the New Meadowlands Stadium Company, did on this design-build project. As Dateline readers are well aware, Skanska completed the stadium on budget and five months early. Now that the project is complete, the company’s Frank Falciani reports change orders amounted to less than one percent.
With the Meadowland’s soft opening — a college lacrosse tripleheader — just a few weeks past, Dateline caught up with Falciani to congratulate him on a job well done and to learn a little more about the guy who ran what is probably one of the biggest design-build jobs in the sports and recreation sector completed so far.
“We were so far ahead of schedule that the owner was able to begin booking events months ahead,” Falciani reports. As a result, a World Cup qualifying match is scheduled to bring 80,000 people to the stadium as early as May 7. “That will be a good event,” he notes. “It will fill the venue close to capacity. Then there is a Bon Jovi concert in June and a U2 concert in July. By the time we get to the [football] season everything will be well tested,” including state-of-the art sound and electronics systems.
Speed and price were key issues to the owner, who set an already aggressive schedule. As Mark Lamping, president and CEO of the New Meadowlands Stadium, told Dateline last year, “We operate an entertainment venue. There is no margin of error for being late or over budget. Speed to market is essential in our business. Skanska delivered a well-thought-out plan, backed up by top-notch leadership and management.” Design-build offered the client greater cost certainty and greater assurance of timely completion because both the project price and the project schedule, respectively, was set before design was completed.
What makes someone like Falciani want to take on a major project such as the Meadowlands? In addition to the price tag, the stadium was built on a former landfill and presented the worst soil conditions he had ever encountered. And Skanska was under orders not only to engage in hazardous materials abatement but also to stockpile and reuse the soil. Add to that the fact that Skanska not only held the design-build contract but also put up a corporate guarantee — bonding a project valued slightly under $1 billion — and the pressure seems fairly intense.
“I was born and raised in general contracting, and I’ve worked for Skanska for 20 years.” Falciani explains. “At 53, this looked like what I wanted to do. I had done a few smaller design-build jobs before but I’d never built anything as big as [the Meadowlands]. “When you are able to burn $30 million a month you know you are putting a lot of work in place. If you don’t enjoy that then you should get in another business.”
Asked about his favorite part of the job, the first thing that comes to mind isn’t the driving of 5,000 steel pilings in record time — that’s the second thing. “I enjoyed the contract negotiations tremendously,” he says. “I got the chance to see masters at work and I don’t always get a chance to see what goes into a contract negotiation that makes it successful.”
Both the owner and Skanska were extremely diligent when it came to satisfying their obligations. New Meadowlands engaged consultants Hammes to lead them through the RFP/RFQ process and in an era when bridging documents can be ill defined, it's nice to hear someone reference “the fine set of bridging documents.” All this preparation and negotiation, “made it easy for me to build it,” Falciani modestly claims.
Co-location at the project site was key, too, since everyone had to hit the ground running. Skanska alone had a staff of 110 on site, including full-time professionals charged with buying hundreds of millions of dollars worth of trade contractor packages, materials and labor. “All the major subs had trailers there including architects of record, Ewing Cole, and engineers, Thornton Tomasetti and Lang Associates.”
After a project of the size and scope of the New Meadowlands Stadium, what does Falciani have in mind as a follow-up? Well, he has an additional title and role at the company, namely, “National Leader, Sports Center of Excellence (COE).” Building on the success of its COEs in Healthcare and Mission Critical, Skanska is creating another virtual group dedicated to harnessing the firm’s expertise in the sports sector.
Joey Hatch, who heads up Skanska USA Building, Healthcare Center of Excellence, has described his COE as an effort that “enables us to get more out of the frontline. We can raise the bar, take on more jobs, fine-tune the processes, improve bottom-line profit and recruiting. This is also one way we make sure that we deliver consistent quality in all our projects across the U.S.”
Just two months into the Skanska Sports COE effort, Falciani isn’t at all discouraged by the effect of the economy on the sports and rec sector, especially when it comes to design-build opportunities. “Sports is a very good market,” he says. “If you do a good job, there is plenty of good work out there. You are not going to win them all — but you’re not supposed to.”
Susan Hines is DBIA’s director of public relations and information.