STV is celebrating two marquee infrastructure projects in New York City that were recognized in the American Council of Engineering Companies of New York (ACEC New York) 2026 Engineering Excellence Awards program.
The Grand Central Terminal (GCT) Pedestrian Tunnel, designed by STV as part of the Skanska–STV design-build team, received a Diamond Award – the program’s highest level of recognition – and now advances as a finalist for the statewide Empire Award, which will be announced in April. Additionally, the firm’s Roma and Hett Avenues Flood Resilience project in Staten Island, delivered on behalf of the New York City Department of Design and Construction (NYCDDC), earned a Gold Award for transforming one of the borough’s most flood-prone neighborhoods into a model for climate-ready street and sewer infrastructure.
“The strength of our New York team is how seamlessly our local infrastructure teams work with long-standing clients like the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and NYCDDC – and how they pull in our national experts in tunneling, geotechnical engineering and resilience to solve extraordinarily complex challenges,” said Marcos Díaz González, president of Transportation North at STV. “These awards underscore that when we collaborate across disciplines and with our agency partners, we deliver infrastructure that is safer, more resilient and genuinely responsive to the communities it serves.”
About the Grand Central Terminal Pedestrian Tunnel (Diamond Award; Empire Award finalist)
More than a century after Grand Central Terminal opened, growing passenger volumes tied to Grand Central Madison and heavy transfers along the 7 Line created congestion, backtracking and safety concerns in one of the nation’s most complex underground transit environments. To relieve those pressure points, the MTA commissioned a new pedestrian tunnel beneath East 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue that provides a direct, intuitive connection between the 7 Line and Grand Central’s mezzanine and Lexington Line platforms. Working as engineer-of-record, STV led the structural, geotechnical and systems design and helped the team deliver the passageway under live transit operations, with shallow rock cover, dense utilities and zero tolerance for vibration or settlement impacts on nearby landmark buildings. The project finished under budget, improved circulation and egress for tens of thousands of daily riders and set a new benchmark for shallow-cover urban tunneling in New York City.
About the Roma and Hett Avenues Flood Resilience project (Gold Award)
Following the devastation of Superstorm Sandy, the Roma and Hett Avenues area of Staten Island faced recurring street, yard and basement flooding because of low-lying topography and undersized sewers. NYCDDC engaged STV to reconceive the work as a neighborhood-scale flood-resilience program that rebuilt more than 16,800 feet of storm and sanitary sewers, replaced 17,500 feet of water mains, reconstructed roughly 300,000 square feet of streets and sidewalks, optimized grades – in some locations by as much as 18 inches – and added flood-resilient components like locking manhole covers and backflow prevention devices. The team also devised a first-of-its-kind pile-supported “pipe bridge cradle” to span an existing utility conflict and keep the job moving during construction. The result is a safer, more accessible and more climate-ready neighborhood that protects residents, emergency access and city assets during both routine storms and extreme weather.
Project teams will be honored at ACEC New York’s Engineering Excellence Awards gala on April 18 in New York City.
