Modern megaprojects need stronger leadership, says New York construction legend

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A construction industry legend who is internationally recognised for managing some of the biggest projects ever completed in the world, Lehrer’s CV speaks for itself. His career includes managing construction for the world’s most iconic projects such as the Statue of Liberty restoration, Central Park Zoo, Canary Wharf in London and Disneyland Paris.

Speaking with NCE, Lehrer, who founded his first company in 1979, discussed how a lack of leadership affects construction projects in many ways.

“While technology has been helpful in improving the way projects are executed with things like prefabrication or pre-assembly of components, the one factor that is the difference is leadership,” he said.

“I think leadership abilities of the construction industry are not as solid and as strong as they used to be.

“It takes serious sharp minds and hands-on management to make a difference.”

Lehrer learnt how vital leadership was during the famous restoration of the Statue of Liberty that took place between 1984 and 1986. He helped to project manage the works and remembers how impressive the leaders on the team were and the ingenuity they showed.

“With the restoration of the Statue of Liberty, which was an amazing project, everything that was done there had never been done before,” he said.

“Literally everything had to be invented in order to meet the needs of the project and I think unfortunately the industry lacks the talent and mindset to do some of the things we’ve done in the past.”

One of these solutions involved the use of liquid nitrogen to freeze old paint off a section of the statue.

“You don’t get so many of these very imaginative solutions that people don’t do think of on an everyday basis anymore,” Lehrer stated.

Another noteworthy factor of the work to restore the Statue of Liberty was the tallest freestanding scaffolding at the time, standing 73m tall. This was required as nothing was allowed to lean against or touch the statue itself.

Lehrer believes that finding atypical solutions for projects is still a key facet to successful delivery.

“It’s about bringing to the forefront observations, ideas and solutions to the challenges, because a building project is an ever-evolving process in which every day is different,” he said.

“There are new challenges and issues that pop up all the time and being able to come up with timely solutions often makes a difference in the outcome of a project.”

Part of this involves having people working in leadership who are willing to devote themselves to getting the project done.

“You want people who are very committed, always thinking about what’s going on and how to make it better or how to anticipate the multitude of problems that are invariably going to happen,” Lehrer explained.

PML is in line to project manage the $10bn (£7.72bn) rebuild of the 74-year-old Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City, the biggest bus terminal in the world.

Lehrer is expecting there to be a number of atypical solutions needed to complete the construction, which must be delivered while avoiding too much disruption to New York and New Jersey’s bus network and the general public of the Big Apple.

One of these solutions that has been confirmed is the construction of a temporary bus terminal while the new permanent terminal is being built. It will then be converted into a storage space.

“The terminal is a multi-phase project where the old terminal needs to be brought into the 21st century,” Lehrer said.

“There’s a lot of people who use this facility and suddenly it will be out of use use so there’s a lot of circulation and movement that could be lost.

“Usually anything like this is a huge challenge in New York and there are so many challenges of logistics, not just with the terminal being out of action during construction.

“There are many utilities that have to be relocated and massive amounts of concrete that needs to be brought to site.”

Lehrer is willing to rise to the challenge after such an illustrious career which saw him start as a civil engineer in the Midwest.

“I started out as a civil engineer where I would walk around construction sites on the farms of Illinois,” he said.

“All I ever wanted to do was build buildings. My love interest has always been in building.”