Photo courtesy of Skanska
Anubhav (Abu) Bhargava
Executive vice president and general manager, New England operating unit, Skanska
Age: 52
Industry experience: 30 years
Skanska’s construction crews are leaving an imprint across Boston, from high-rise college dorm construction in Longwood to a new parking garage and roadways at Logan International Airport. Overseeing a team of 200 employees across New England, Abu Bhargava is settling into his new management role for the company, which has secured a steady pipeline of projects from public agencies including Massport and the MBTA to offset the downturn in office and lab construction. The 30-year construction industry veteran joined Skanska in 2008, relocated to Massachusetts in 2013 and was promoted to his current role in August. Skanska’s next big New England project: the $1 billion replacement of the North Station Draw One bridge.
Q: What are the next milestones in the Simmons University Living and Learning Center and Skanska’s Longwood Place redevelopment of the Simmons residential campus?
A: The [student housing] tower completion is early next year. We’re going through the final finishes and we’ll start doing the inspections with the city this year and early next year. Our intention is the students will start to have access to that building early next year: a 16-story building with dorms, a pool, rowing tanks and full dining, essentially creating a space for the students in terms of a living-learning center. It has very good spaces where the students can interact for collaboration. That’s what the campus is set up for.
Q: How soon might the mixed-use redevelopment begin on the former residential campus?
A: Right now, there are three buildings that are going through the Boston Planning Department approvals: one residential, and two lab and office. So, it depends upon how the market trends.
Q: How competitive is the labor market right now in terms of subcontractors bidding on jobs?
A: In Boston, predominantly the work that we do is all union, and I would say we are not seeing a lot of problems getting the labor. There is qualified labor available, unlike other areas of the country where electricians are coming at a premium. Labor prices are stable, other than the typical union increases and inflationary adjustments. Labor prices have not picked up as much as the material escalation has been.
We are seeing some of the impacts on the Canadian side, because a lot of our projects in Boston, if they are private projects, the steel comes in from Canada. Some of the recent tariffs have created challenges with that. And then we are slowly starting to see the impacts on some of the other materials on the construction that is happening. If you go down further south in the country, it is not as impactful to them on the steel side, because a lot of that steel is U.S.-made.
But on the public sector where we have to buy American, the impact is not as much overall. But the electrical gear, the generators and all of those things that are dependent upon the data center work that is happening across the country, we are seeing the increases there. The lead times have been increasing. Some of the simple things, such as the metal studs and metal panels, are starting to see increases because the data center market is consuming a lot of that capacity right now.
Q: What has been the new tariffs’ effect on Canadian steel prices?
A: Anywhere from a few points to 5 percent or so is what we have seen, but it varies in the sense of when we bought it. Some of the clients will let you make the adjustments. Some of the clients don’t, so it’s case by case basis from that side.
Q: How does that change how contracts are being negotiated?
A: Some of the clients are pretty forthcoming. They want to make sure that risk is allocated where it can be managed. So, some clients say, “OK, we know what we are buying today.” They set aside money, and if the price goes up, they handle it. There are certain instances where the owners say, “No, it is what it is.” Those are difficult to manage, but we are adapting to the clients’ needs and the subcontractor market, and trying to do the right thing in this changing environment.
Q: What other materials are seeing price escalation?
A: The electric equipment has been changing quite a lot. And then, we have been seeing some changes in prices of the drywall metal studs, metal panels: anything that it takes to create the metal boxes for the big data centers. Another one is the roof trusses that are being used in the big warehouse-type data centers. Those have a little bit of a long lead time, and those have gone up as much as 15 to 20 percent in some cases.
Q: Skanska has an AI assistant known as the Safety Sidekick. Are you incorporating that into your local projects, and how does it work?
A: Skanska has been piloting quite a few AI agents that we have developed internally. Safety Sidekick is being used to – if you’re trying to look up something, rather than look through the safety manual – if you want to get a quick answer, you can type it in, and it’ll help you get to an answer quickly. We are using that. We are also piloting some additional ones that we are using to help navigate and mine the information from our previous proposals, so we can learn from it and help draft up the responses to a new RFP. So that makes it easier for our teams to leverage the submissions previously. So, we’re trying to use AI to make it easier for the teams: be able to search faster through the databases.
Q: How is Skanska using drones on projects?
A: We are using a web site and app called Drone Deploy. So essentially, that takes into account that we have a lot of employees who have gotten their drone licenses, and we own the drones. In some cases, we are using the drone images to do the quantity takeoff and progress comparison. Plus, we take the typical still pictures. In addition to that, we are taking 360-degree cameras and doing walkthroughs of the sites, so all of that gets compiled in Drone Deploy. That information is available not only to our project site people, but our subcontractors, the engineers and the owners. A lot of times, they are able to, in real time, look at the progress that has happened over days and months, and you can use it to track progress. You can split the screen, look at a picture of what it looked like three months ago, and look at a recent picture, and look at the comparison that way.
Q: For people traveling out of Logan, what major changes will they notice in coming months?
A: There have been changes done right now in front of Terminal E. The second curb, where the passenger drop-off and pick-up is, is getting moved over. But there will be a change of the roadways to access it. They’ll always have two curbs available for the passenger pickup. For a small shutdown, there will be a little bit of changes on the departure level. But Massport is doing everything they can in terms of the coverage with the Massport police, and to make sure the people can get to the right spot, get picked up and dropped off, and then get on with there from that side. They’ve also been providing additional signage, and there will be a lot of people available to help guide the passengers through this change until it settles down overall.
Abu’s Five Favorite Things About New England:
- Summer in New England
- Boston sports
- Lobster rolls by the water
- Historic neighborhoods
- Working for Skanska
