Project Approach
The Watertown Mall project has to happen while the mall remains operational and tenants continue to serve their clients without major disruption. That's the standard our team has built our project approach around. Here, we highlight our understanding and offer our plan of action for project success.
NEC Advantage
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Big Company Capabilities, Small Company Feel
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Highest quality subcontractor base to draw from resulting in most competitive pricing and exceptional quality
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40 years of experience in retail construction
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Experienced, friendly project team with strong communication skills from top to bottom - You will like our people!
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Exceptional attention to detail while maintaining the project schedule
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Advanced leadership experience in driving pre-construction activities to set this project up for success
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Passionate commitment to safety and quality
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Skilled logistics planning in active shopping centers with oversight from our in house Director of Safety
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Embracing a collaborate partnership
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Bonding Capacity in excess of $100MM
Phased Construction Management - One project. Multiple controlled turnovers.
NEC will manage the Watertown Mall Re-Demise project as a series of interconnected phases, using the project phasing plan to establish the sequence, logistics, temporary conditions, and milestones governing each stage of the work.
Before advancing, we will define what must be demolished, constructed, inspected, protected, and turned over to enable the next phase. This creates the structure needed to respond to evolving tenant and operational requirements without losing sight of the overall project execution goal.
Each phase will be managed around clear milestones for:
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Demolition and construction
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Infrastructure modifications
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Inspections and commissioning
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Area completion and protection
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Turnover and operational transition
Maintaining Mall & Tenant Operations
Construction will advance around an operating environment, emphasizing the importance of the customer experience.
Our team will maintain clear separation between active work and occupied portions of the property while preserving required tenant, restaurant, customer, and emergency access and egress. Work adjacent to operating tenants will be carefully and thoughtfully planned around their continued operations and limiting disruptions.
As the construction footprint evolves, the NEC team will continually evaluate how people move and exist around it by giving the trades controlled work areas while keeping public circulation safe, clean, and easily understandable.
Throughout each phase of construction NEC will focus on:
Maintaining safe access to operating tenants
Preserving required customer and emergency egress
Separating pedestrian and construction circulation
Minimizing impacts to mall operations and the customer experience
Phase-Specific Logistics Planning
Each phase changes the jobsite. NEC will plan the next condition before changing the current one.
As construction progresses across Watertown Mall, the logistics cannot remain static. NEC will develop and update phase-specific logistics plans so that access, protection, temporary conditions, utilities, staging, and material flow are established before each area of work transitions to the next.
Construction Limits and Separation
Each phase will establish clearly defined construction limits and secure separation between active work and occupied areas. Temporary partitions will evolve with the construction footprint, allowing work to continue while maintaining boundaries needed for ongoing tenant operations.
Pedestrian and Worker Circulation
Public and construction circulation will be deliberately separated. We prioritize customer and tenant comfort and safety through strategic planning of tenant routes, trade worker access, and emergency egress around each active phase so that changing the construction areas do not create unnecessary conflict with tenant and mall operations.
Flow of Staging and Deliveries
Staging areas, dumpsters, delivery routes, and material flow is planned around the needs and constraints of each individual phase. As the work shifts, these plans will adapt and shift with them to support the work without interfering with occupied areas.
Tenant and Public Protections
In an active mall, protection is part of the construction sequence.
Each change in work area much preserve a safe, clean, clearly understood boundary between construction and the public. NEC will maintain appropriate temporary barriers, dust control, noise mitigation, directional signage, and clearly identified public circulation as conditions evolve.
High-impact activities affecting tenants or public areas will be identified early so they can be performed with their impact can be best controlled.
Disruptive work including demolition, utility shutdowns ,tie-ins, and overhead activities will be planned in advance and performed during off hours when required.
Changing access conditions will be communicated before implementation, helping tenants and property operations prepare rather than react.
Communication and Coordination
NEC will utilize rolling look-ahead schedules and focused planning with the Watertown Mall and its design teams, tenants, authorities and subcontractors to identify upcoming impacts early.
As major transitions approach, planning will become increasingly focused on the conditions that must be satisfied before the next phase can begin.
Look-ahead planning will encourage transparency for:
- Upcoming phase transitions
- Access and circulation changes
- Utility shutdowns and tie-ins
- Inspections and requirements
- Tenant turnover requirements
- Long-lead time procurement
Continuous communication and transparency allows for the team to resolve issues before they affect the schedule.
Schedule and Phase Transitions
NEC will manage demolition, infrastructure modifications, core-and-shell construction, inspections, commissioning, temporary conditions, turnover requirements, and release subsequent work areas as interconnected schedule milestones.
Before operations transitions and construction migrates, the preceding area will be complete, inspected, appropriately protected and ready for its intended turnover.
A Controlled Transition
This sequential approach creates accountability throughout the 18 month project duration and protects against incomplete work in one phase becoming a constraint on the next.
Budget & Cost Management
NEC will dedicate a Project Manager who will be the common conduit from which information flows throughout the preconstruction phase. In addition to serving as the primary point of contact for the Owner Group and all involved design consultants, he will manage the subcontractor agreements on the project and be responsible for updating the master project schedule. The Project Manager will also keep the Owner Group apprised of all aspects of the budget and any potential cost impacts to the project. By onboarding your builder early, changes are minimal. The preconstruction effort and collaboration by owner, architect, builder and all consultants minimizes the risk for changes. In the case of an owner-directed change to the program, NEC will quickly evaluate and communicate all potential cost and/or scheduling impacts. We are a relationship-focused firm with a reputation of being fair and equitable in all of our relationships. We will leverage our subcontractor relationships to negotiate a fair price. Our primary objective is to treat our client’s money like it is our money. We maintain a change order log and potential change order log that is updated weekly.
We feel that NEC is the perfect size for this project and delivery method. NEC produces $80 million in construction revenue annually. We are large enough that we have the horsepower to successfully manage large scale redevelopments and ground up construction, yet small enough where each project we execute has executive oversight from our firm President and CEO , Vice President of Operations or Director of Project Management. We will give careful consideration to project cost versus construction cost in order to make sure that both meet the overall project budget. As a merit shop, we have the flexibility to address this by using the proper subcontractor in each trade regardless of union or non-union status.
Procore
New England Construction will utilize Procore for the project management software on this project. Procore is a user friendly, collaborative project management platform designed to streamline communication between all team members, provide live time updates of project status, and document all information in one organized location. The program is cloud based and accessible wherever there is internet – at the office, at home, or on the fourth floor in one of the units we are building.
Procore allows the team to quickly create RFIs from marked up drawings, share new Addendums with subcontractors, manage contracts and finances, and provide daily reports and project updates. There is an unlimited amount of storage for the project and the data that will be available for Operations & Maintenance manuals. Procore’s mobile app makes it easy to view documents in the field, on a walkthrough or remotely. If there is a question in the field, our site Superintendent can quickly respond and access all of the drawings at his fingertips.
Project Benefits include:- Increased collaboration
- Streamlined efficiency
- Quick responses
- Accurate live project updates
- Real time visibility into the projects health
- Increased accountability for the team
- Reduces risk
- Cohesiveness between the field and the office