Dive Brief:

• AECOM has announced that two infrastructure experts from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have joined its New York City team as associated vice presidents to help deliver major transportation infrastructure projects across the region.
• Antonino Marino was hired as associate vice president, senior program manager. He is the former deputy chief of design for the PANYNJ Engineering Department Design Division, where he directed a staff of over 250 engineers and architects in the design of all Port Authority facilities. This included the five metropolitan airports, two tunnels and four bridges between New York and New Jersey, the PATH rail system, the Port Authority Bus Terminal, Ports Facilities and the World Trade Center Complex.
• Anthony Chionchio joins as associate vice president, senior electrical technical leader. The former PANYNJ chief electrical engineer was responsible for all the electrical and electronics engineering design work of the agency's 10-year $32 billion capital plan. He oversaw the work of numerous consultants and a staff of more than 60 in-house electrical, electronics and on-site consulting engineers in the design of all Port Authority facilities including five airports, two tunnels, four bridges, three bus terminals, port facilities, the Teleport, the PATH rail system and the World Trade Center complex. 

Dive Insight:

The two appointments could help the Los Angeles-based contractor capitalize on infrastructure work in the New York City area, and follow the hirings this spring of other transit-focused executives with deep experience in the region.

In March, the company announced it had hired two executives with decades of infrastructure-related experience to help lead its New York City-based group: Tom Prendergast, former chairman and CEO of the New York area Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Denise Berger, former chief of operations of the Engineering Department of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Prendergast was named head of transit within AECOM's Design and Consulting Services Americas (DCSA) and Berger joined as senior vice president and COO of AECOM’s Northeast Region, which includes the metropolitan New York City area. 

Although many commercial construction sectors in the New York City region will likely see a coronavirus-induced decline in new work in coming months, transit agencies like PANYNJ and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority should see an uptick at least through 2022, according to a new report from the New York Building Congress.

Other large contractors are also bullish on opportunities for infrastructure and other work in the Big Apple. 

Earlier this year, Reston, Virginia-based Bechtel, the country's largest engineering and construction company by revenue, opened an office in Manhattan to take advantage of the infrastructure project demand there. The company's previous New York City office closed in 2009.

Bechtel said the office will help it to leverage its experience working with complex megaprojects. In a statement, Chairman and CEO Brendan Bechtel said the company is looking to partner with the city in its goal of "improving transportation, expanding digital technology and insuring access to safe, reliable infrastructure."

And earlier this month, San Francisco-based Swinerton announced that it will open a New York City office next summer.