Foley has made innovation a hallmark of his tenure as Commissioner.
Prior to being appointed Commissioner of New York City’s Department of Design and Construction (DDC) by Mayor Adams in January 2022, Tom Foley had already served the agency with great distinction over his then-25-year career at DDC. In the wake of 9/11, he became a project manager for the DDC’s $500 million World Trade Center Disaster Recovery and Debris Removal Project. Over the years, he moved up the ranks of the agency from deputy director to director to assistant commissioner of DDC’s Division of Infrastructure. Later, as an associate commissioner, he helped spearhead the activation of Water Tunnel 3, and then as deputy commissioner of the Public Buildings Division, he managed the design and construction of a large range of civic buildings for the City of New York.
In the following interview, Foley looks back at his career at DDC and talks about what’s next for the agency under his leadership.
BTEA: Commissioner, you started your career at DDC back in 1998 as an engineer-in-charge, and before ascending to Commissioner, you held a number of different positions in the Department. How has DDC changed since you first joined it and how has your long career within the Department informed your perspective as Commissioner?
DDC has evolved a lot since I started. When I first joined, we had fewer project delivery tools and technologies at our disposal. Over the years, our projects have become more complex and ambitious, and there has been a dedicated focus on resiliency and energy conservation. My long career here has given me a deep understanding of our processes and challenges. It’s also helped me appreciate the value of continuous improvement and adaptability. Seeing how the agency has grown and adapted over time has been invaluable in shaping my vision for its future. I’ve also learned where some of the pinch points are that need to be reviewed, like improving our change order processing time, improving how long it takes to make a payment, and working better with our industry partners across the board.
BTEA: You oversee a massive portfolio of over $33 billion in capital projects, but you make managing it look easy. Can you give us a window into what a day in the busy life of Tom Foley looks like?
No two days are the same. With the constant shift in priorities, whether it’s our work on COVID-19, HERRCs, etc., we are constantly on our toes and adapting as an agency, and my days reflect that same energy. I spend a lot of time out in the field visiting project sites, seeing how work has progressed and also connecting directly with field staff—our boots on the ground—which is crucial for staying in tune with their experiences and needs. When I am in the office, I have an open door policy for staff to stop by.
DDC’s amazing staff of 1200 quite literally builds the City of New York. I encourage our team to be creative, take initiative, and have even posted a permission slip around the office. As long as it’s legal and it makes sense, I want everyone to feel empowered to make decisions. In our business when communities are counting on us to deliver projects on-time and on-budget, we can’t afford to wait.
BTEA: You and the Mayor’s Capital Reform Taskforce scored a number of big legislative wins in 2024. Can you share how this will affect DDC’s management of projects and what you’re aiming to get done next session in Albany?
In June, the state Legislature passed a bill that would allow DDC to use construction manager-build for library and cultural institution projects, and another that would give us a form of progressive design-build for future resiliency projects to help protect our great city. We now need those bills to be signed into law so we can continue to reform city design, procurement and construction. There’s no reason why our former neighbors at SCA can self-perform certain tasks to save time when they are building schools, but we can’t when we are building similar essential buildings and infrastructure.
BTEA: You recently met with leading BTEA contractors to share how DDC is cutting bureaucratic red tape and streamlining duplicative steps to save time and ultimately process invoices faster. Can you explain why this is a priority for you?
DDC is accountable to deliver for New York City, but we can’t deliver on our own. We need additional delivery tools, and we need strong advocates. With our partners, we demand that DDC design and build better, faster, and cheaper. We’ve seen what can happen when we stand united behind common sense solutions to improve project delivery. Every time DDC has been given the chance to use common sense design and construction practices, we knock it out of the park; we build faster and more efficiently. We have taken a chainsaw to the bureaucracy with our growing design-build program, completing major projects more than two years faster than we could before, starting early construction before pencils are down on the design. We’ve proven during emergencies that we can use construction methods like CM-Build effectively. It’s past time for Albany to acknowledge these successes, hold us accountable, and cut the red tape.
BTEA: What else is ahead for DDC? What are some of the projects that you’re working on or planning that you would like to highlight in particular?
1. Our coastal resiliency program is essential for the city and truly a model for other cities around the globe, protecting 3+ miles of the Manhattan coastline and communities under ESCR/BMCR [East Side Coastal Resiliency/Brooklyn Bridge-Montgomery Coastal Resilience] from sea level rise and adding sewer capacity in response to heavier rain storms, with a project in Red Hook starting next year to protect that community. These projects are feats of engineering, adapting to the geography of each location to provide the right protection tool, while also maintaining access to the water and amenities for the community.
2. Green infrastructure and porous pavement, working with DEP and DOT on providing creative solutions to cloudburst and heavier rain storms. No idea is too small.
3. Borough-based jails are a massive undertaking by the city and DDC to change the fabric of how we detain individuals accused of crimes and designing/building civic assets that fit into the fabric of the community
4. Every day work that our team delivers: new water mains and sewers, new libraries, new museums and cultural centers, the first new police precincts opening in the city in decades at the 40th in the Bronx and 116th in Queens, and more.