DDC’s Jade Bailey Receives Prestigious Sloan Public Service Award

Director of Agency’s New Design-Build Unit is Helping to Lead the Way to a New Era of Municipal Construction

Ian Michaels, michaelia@ddc.nyc.gov, 646-939-6514

(Long Island City, NY – November 15, 2024) Commissioner Thomas Foley of the NYC Department of Design and Construction (DDC) today congratulated Jade Bailey, a professional civil engineer and Director in the agency’s design-build pilot program, for being named one of six winners of the 2024 Sloan Public Service Awards.

DDC Director and Sloan Award winner Jade Bailey

"Jade Bailey has gone above and beyond for the city in times of crisis, she is part of a groundbreaking effort that is improving municipal construction, and we are extraordinarily fortunate to have her at DDC and we rejoice in her success,” said DDC Commissioner Thomas Foley. “Jade exemplifies everything a City and DDC employee should be. She excels at motivating project teams, supervising contractors and managing projects with tight schedules, and right now the cutting-edge design-build program she is part of developing is reducing the timelines for large public projects by years. She is very deserving of a Sloan Award, considered the ‘Nobel Prize’ of awards for city employees.”

The awards, which since 1973 have been sponsored by the Fund For The City of New York, are considered the leading award for city employees and are given for an “extraordinary level of commitment to the public” and to employees who “routinely step beyond the bounds of their job responsibilities to ensure that New Yorkers’ needs are met.” Each year six honorees are selected by a panel of experts out of the more than 300,000 staff who work for mayoral and non-mayoral agencies, with winners honored at a ceremony and receiving a $10,000 prize and other recognitions. The last time DDC received a Sloan Award was 2002, when it was given an Agency Award for its efforts to remediate the World Trade Center site following the 9/11 attacks.

Ms. Bailey’s nomination from DDC for the award included support from agency leadership and several of her past managers and colleagues, as well as outside consultants and contractors. Ms. Bailey holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering Technology from Temple University and is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP), a LEED accredited professional and a professional Civil Engineer. She started at DDC in 2013 as a Project Manager in its Public Buildings Division and has held positions in project management as well as civil engineering design review. In her time in DDC’s Cultural Affairs Unit, she supervised projects including the Noguchi Sculpture Garden Courtyard in Long Island City, Queens. She went on to manage much larger projects such as the $280 million Marine Transfer Station at East 91st Street in Manhattan.

During the COVID-19 pandemic Ms. Bailey was an important part of the DDC team that worked around the clock to build field hospitals, clinics, testing sites, mobile testing trucks and vaccination sites. Because of the COVID emergency, that work was completed in record time outside of New York’s traditional system of lowest bidder contracting.

Building on that experience with alternate methods of delivery outside of the lowest bidder contracting model, Ms. Bailey is now a Director in DDC’s growing design-build pilot program. In December 2019, after years of advocacy, DDC received permission from the State of New York to use design-build contracting for a variety of projects. Under Assistant Commissioner Yvi McEvilly, the agency has a growing portfolio of both public buildings and infrastructure projects using design-build.

Jade has been involved in the new $141 million Shirley Chisholm Recreation Center in Brooklyn, which is expected to be completed in 2025, a full two years faster than would have been possible using lowest bidder contracting. She has also been working on the new 50,000 square foot recreation center at Roy Wilkins Park, with a team selection expected in the coming weeks.

About the NYC Department of Design and Construction
The Department of Design and Construction is the City’s primary capital construction project manager. In supporting Mayor Adams’ long-term vision of growth, sustainability, resiliency, equity and healthy living, DDC provides communities with new or renovated public buildings such as firehouses, libraries, police precincts, and new or upgraded roads, sewers and water mains in all five boroughs. To manage this $33 billion portfolio, DDC partners with other City agencies, architects and consultants, whose experience bring efficient, innovative and environmentally-conscious design and construction strategies to City projects. For more information, please visit, nyc.gov/ddc.