BC Reviews

In late 1989, Mr. Costella represented the interests of the recently formed construction firm of Lehrer McGovern at 23 Park Avenue South, in New York City (presently known as Bovis Land Lease), to act as pre-construction Project Manager for the replacement of the existing New York Cornell Hospital (presently known as The NY Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell). Mr. Costella was responsible for pre-construction schedules, strategies, and means / methods estimates, phasing and swing space requirements for a Guaranteed Maximum Price of $750 million, at-risk. He developed an innovative cost estimating mechanism, which allowed the owner and programmer to design a 500,000 square foot Ambulatory and Acute Care Facility by major functional groups that increased Lehrer McGovern's in-house productivity by 15%. Mr. Costella was also challenged with broad scope responsibilities for preparing site option and construction studies with their associated financial and time impacts. The hospital's site option studies, pre-construction schedules, and financial estimates, were successfully reviewed and approved by the US Health and Human Services Department, Washington DC, and also met the New York State Certificate for Need requirements, allowing NY State to sell $1 billion in bonds to finance the multiphase modernization program. The NY Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Center, built over the FDR Drive on the upper east side of Manhattan, is one of the largest medical building programs in our nation's history, with a total project cost of over $1 billion dollars.