Gilbane Building Company is an American privately held construction and
facility management
Facility management or facilities management (FM) is a professional management discipline focused on the efficient and effective delivery of logistics and other support services related to real property and buildings. It encompasses multiple disc ...
company, with its headquarters in
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts ...
and more than 45 office locations in the US and abroad. It was founded as a family business in 1870 and officially incorporated in 1908, Gilbane has active participation from the fourth, fifth, and sixth generations of the Gilbane family. Gilbane Building Company and Gilbane Development Company are the primary entities under Gilbane, Inc.
History
Gilbane Building Company, originally known as William H. Gilbane and Brother, was founded in 1870 by
William H. Gilbane and his brother, Thomas, as a carpentry and general contracting shop in Providence, Rhode Island. The company first focused on building homes and later expanded to churches, hospitals and other buildings. William H. Gilbane’s sons, William J. Gilbane and Thomas F. Gilbane, joined the company as president and vice president in the late 1930s. In 1943, Gilbane was awarded the Army-Navy “E” Award by Under-Secretary of the Navy,
James Forrestal
James Vincent Forrestal (February 15, 1892 – May 22, 1949) was the last Cabinet-level United States Secretary of the Navy and the first United States Secretary of Defense.
Forrestal came from a very strict middle-class Irish Catholic fami ...
.
Gilbane expanded its services and formed the development of its sister company, Gilbane Development Company, in 1970. Gilbane Development Company concentrates on real estate development, financing, construction, operations, and management. In that same year, William J. Gilbane Jr. and Thomas F. Gilbane Jr. joined Gilbane Construction Company. In 2010, Gilbane acquired two separate companies: Innovative Technical Solutions, Inc. (ITSI),
a California-based engineering and construction company on August 4, and W.G. Mills Inc., a construction management company based in Florida on November 15. In 2014, William J. Gilbane Jr. became vice chair and director of Gilbane, Inc. In 2015, Gilbane Building Company named Michael McKelvy its president and chief operating officer. McKelvy was appointed CEO in 2016, succeeding Thomas F. Gilbane Jr., who remained at the company as chairman.
In 2016, Gilbane was named one of the top corporate charitable contributors by the Boston Business Journal. In 2018, Gilbane completed improvements to
Fenway Park
Fenway Park is a baseball stadium located in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, near Kenmore Square. Since 1912, it has been the home of the Boston Red Sox, the city's American League baseball team, and since 1953, its only Major League Bas ...
. In 2020, William J. Gilbane III was named to the Gilbane Inc. board of directors. In 2022, fifth-generation Gilbane family members, Daniel M. Gilbane and Paul J. Choquette III, were named to new leadership positions with the company with Gilbane named as Managing Director and President and Choquette as Regional President.
In 2022, Tom Laird was named CEO and president by Gilbane Building Company.
As of June 2022, Gilbane has more than 45 offices within the United States and internationally.
Family Business Magazine ranked Gilbane as the 78th largest family business in the United States in 2009 and according to Forbes, Gilbane was ranked 63rd in America's largest private companies.
Notable projects
*
1964 New York World's Fair in Flushing Meadows, NY.
*
Albright-Knox Art Gallery
The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly known as the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, is an art museum at 1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York, in Delaware Park. the museum's Elmwood Avenue campus is temporarily closed for construction. It hosted e ...
.
*
ExxonMobil Campus in Houston, TX.
*
George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, TX.
*
Georgia Tech
The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...
Carbon Neutral Energy Solutions (CNES) Laboratory in Atlanta, GA.
* Lake Placid Winter Olympics Facilities in Lake Placid, NY, which hosted the
XIII Olympic Winter Games
The 1980 Winter Olympics, officially the XIII Olympic Winter Games and also known as Lake Placid 1980, were an international multi-sport event held from February 13 to 24, 1980, in Lake Placid, New York, United States.
Lake Placid was elected ...
in 1980.
*
Legacy Union, formerly known as 620 South Tryon, in Charlotte, NC.
*
Live! Casino & Hotel Philadelphia.
* Hospital for
Mohawk Valley Health System in
Utica, New York
Utica () is a city in the Mohawk Valley and the county seat of Oneida County, New York, United States. The tenth-most-populous city in New York State, its population was 65,283 in the 2020 U.S. Census. Located on the Mohawk River at the ...
.
*
National Archives at College Park, MD. The National Archives building is a Federal Archives building at the University of Maryland.
*
Norton Museum of Art
The Norton Museum of Art is an art museum located in West Palm Beach, Florida. Its collection includes over 8,200 works, with a concentration in European, American, and Chinese art as well as in contemporary art and photography. In 2003, it overt ...
renovation.
*
O'Hare International Airport, Terminal 5 in Chicago, IL.
*
Prudential Center
Prudential Center is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the central business district of Newark, New Jersey. Opened in 2007, it is the home of the New Jersey Devils of the National Hockey League (NHL) and the men's basketball program of Seton Hal ...
, "The Rock" New Jersey Devils Arena, Newark, NJ.
*
Robert F. Kennedy U. S. Department of Justice Building in Washington D.C.
* Smithsonian Institution's
National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. The construction for the museum was “fast tracked” in order to be completed for the
United States Bicentennial
The United States Bicentennial was a series of celebrations and observances during the mid-1970s that paid tribute to historical events leading up to the creation of the United States of America as an independent republic. It was a central event ...
.
* Robert W. Wilson Building at the
Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art
The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) is a museum in a converted Arnold Print Works factory building complex located in North Adams, Massachusetts. It is one of the largest centers for contemporary visual art and performing ar ...
in North Adams, MA.
*
Union Station
A union station (also known as a union terminal, a joint station in Europe, and a joint-use station in Japan) is a railway station at which the tracks and facilities are shared by two or more separate railway companies, allowing passengers to ...
restoration in Washington D.C.
*
United States Capitol Visitors Center in Washington D.C.
*
Vietnam Veterans Memorial
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a U.S. national memorial in Washington, D.C., honoring service members of the U.S. armed forces who served in the Vietnam War. The site is dominated by two black granite walls engraved with the names of those ...
in Washington D.C. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was established by The Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial Fund to honor and recognize American veterans of the Vietnam War.
*
World War II Memorial
The World War II Memorial is a national memorial in the United States dedicated to Americans who served in the armed forces and as civilians during World War II. It is located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
The memorial consists ...
in Washington D.C. A memorial built in 2004 to commemorate service to World War II veterans at the National Mall in Washington D.C.
Certification & partnerships
Gilbane Building Company has been a member of the
U.S. Green Building Council
The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), co-founded by Mike Italiano, David Gottfried and Rick Fedrizzi in 1993, is a private 501(c)3, membership-based non-profit organization that promotes sustainability in building design, construction, and op ...
since January 15, 1999. Members of Gilbane Building Company are also board members of the Women Builders Council and the ACE Mentor program.
On September 29, 2004, Gilbane Building Company formed the Gilbane Building Alliance with the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration'' (OSHA ) is a large regulatory agency of the United States Department of Labor that originally had federal visitorial powers to inspect and examine workplaces. Congress established the agenc ...
(OSHA). The alliance was formed to provide resources and training for employee safety. In 2016, Gilbane Building Company proposed to OSHA a recommendation for on-site construction workers in New York State to hook into safety harnesses when they are working over six feet above ground. Gilbane claimed in its proposal that making these changes to their safety policy resulted in saving the lives of 20 workers on a project in Albany, NY.
Gilbane Building Company is a partner of Rebuilding Together, an organization that improves low-income housing.
In 2018, Gilbane worked with M+W Group to build Foxconn Technology Group's Mount Pleasant campus.
In 2021, Gilbane co-founded Construction Inclusion Week, which focuses on promoting
diversity, equity, and inclusion
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is a conceptual framework claims to promote the fair treatment and full participation of all people, especially in the workplace, including populations who have historically been under-represented or subject ...
in the construction industry.
Recognition
Gilbane Building Company was recognized with the
(AGC) Annual Construction Safety Excellence Award in 2013. In 2015, Gilbane received the CURT Construction Industry Safety Excellence Award for General Building Contractors.
In 2015, Gilbane won the
Associated Builders and Contractor National Excellence in Construction Award for General Contractors. In 2016, two Gilbane projects won the AGC Alliant Build America Award.
Also in 2016, Gilbane won the Engineering News Record’s Global Best Projects Competition for the Kerry Global Technology and Innovation Centre in
Naas, Ireland, and the Ministry of Defense Complex in
Kabul, Afghanistan
Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Acco ...
.
References
{{Reflist, 2
Companies based in Providence, Rhode Island
Construction and civil engineering companies of the United States
American companies established in 1870