Program Management throughout Chicago’s Neighborhoods
The Chicago Neighborhood Engineering and Construction Team, or C*NECT, provides comprehensive Program Management services for the Chicago Department of Transportation. The primary focus of this work is to support the City of Chicago’s Aldermanic Menu Program, which provides thousands of public way improvements throughout all neighborhoods of the City every year. Civiltech, along with Joint Venture partner Infrastructure Engineering, is the prime consultant on this unique and rewarding assignment. Our staff is integrated across the program and provides services throughout the entire life cycle of each project.
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Large Scale Efficiency
Maintaining the City’s neighborhood street infrastructure is at the core of CDOT’s mission. However, budgets for those capital improvements are tight. Therefore, a major goal of our team is to provide our services to CDOT at the lowest possible cost and strive each year to do more with less. We are proud to state that by implementing efficient management strategies and tech savvy solutions, we have succeeded in reducing our operating costs by $2 million in 2018.
Projects Supported by C*NECT:
- Street and alley resurfacing
- Street reconstruction
- Curb and sidewalk replacement
- Pedestrian, cycling, and ADA improvements
- Vision Zero and other safety improvements
- Traffic signal modernizations
- Drainage improvements
- Viaduct improvements
Scope of Services
- Program Management
- Project Programming and Mapping
- Survey, Design, and Estimating
- Project Coordination and Permitting
- Construction Management
- Close Out and Payment Processing
- IT Support and Data Management
Funding:
- Local
At a Glance
Wards
Neighborhoods
Projects Annually
Annual Construction Cost in Millions
Built for Opportunity and Inclusion
On a program that touches every neighborhood of the City, it is our responsibility to be as inclusive as possible. That is why we built our team around a 50/50 Joint Venture with a minority owned business as the prime consultant, along with a commitment to provide 60% participation by MBE and WBE firms. We have exceeded this commitment since the contract was awarded in 2017. Beyond percentages, the program offers opportunity for training and advancement of staff, resulting in leadership roles held by several of the six MBE and three WBE team member firms. A robust Mentor-Protégé program prepares participating firms to win prime contracts.
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Connecting with Our Communities
Our involvement with C*NECT includes a significant amount of volunteer student outreach efforts. We work with a non-profit organization called Embarc (http://www.embarcchicago.org) to introduce low-income Chicago Public High School students to engineering and technical career fields through classroom presentations and field trips. Through the Chicago Scholars Foundation (https://chicagoscholars.org), we also provide internships to students pursuing degrees in engineering and related fields.
New Model for Success
“We’re very proud of this program we’ve created,” says Chris Wolff, P.E., Civiltech’s Director of the Chicago Office. “Previously, most of the engineering support for the City’s Menu Program was provided by the large, nationally based engineering companies. There was no focus on community or opportunity. MBE/WBE participation was at minimum contractual requirements. We’ve changed all that, while also delivering the services at the highest level of quality, more efficiently, and at a lower cost to the City.”
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