波士顿和整个马萨诸塞州的承包商，建筑师和工程师本周将返回工作，因为该地区蓬勃发展的建筑业重新开放。

Boston began a分阶段重新启动of construction activity May 18, giving the green light to a wider range of essential core projects to move forward, like health care and housing. Projects such as condo towers are slated to restart next week in Boston, with the city having put astop由于冠状病毒感染和死亡开始飙升，在3月中旬除了紧急工作外，所有紧急工作。

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) unveiled May 18 his ownreopening plansfor the state’s economy as well, with construction as well as manufacturing reopening in the first wave.

In preparation for the construction relaunch, contractors, architects and engineers with projects in Boston have spent weeks gathering hard-to-find masks, gloves, face shields and other personal protective equipment, as well as acquiring touchless thermometers, and in some cases, installing infrared cameras.

Industry executives say they have also spent weeks hammering out detailed plans for an array of social distancing and safety protocols aimed at preventing the spread of the virus at construction sites and in offices.

Consigli Construction总裁Matthew Consigli说：“我们期待开设一些工作地点。”该公司在波士顿的大部分工作都在两个月前关闭。

Consigli说，他对波士顿市长Marty Walsh（D）和州长贝克采取的谨慎，分步的方法没有问题。他说：“这将使我们能够逐步增加工作，而不是让我们每个人都赶回工作人员。”

新的工作场所现实

Daily temperature checks, infrared cameras at construction sites and staggered shifts, as well as masks and hand-washing stations, are all part of the new reality, Consigli says.

The Milford, Mass.-based contractor, which is gearing up to restart a 300,000 sq-ft lab building for Breakthrough Properties and Tishman Speyer in Boston's Seaport District, has distributed touchless thermometers to its workers. The contractor is experimenting with different types of thermal cameras on its jobsites as well.

Like other contractors interviewed by ENR, gloves, safety glasses and masks are now required as well. “We are asking people to use common sense and check their temperature before they come to the site,” Consigli says.

Jim Chambers, vice president for practice management at Boston-based design firm Shepley Bulfinch, noted that sitework is restarting this week on a $1-billion hospital high-rise his firm designed for Boston Children’s Hospital. Chambers says he expects a slow ramp-up, with contractors, operating in compliance with city regulations, looking to keep their workforce spread out, in part by scheduling multiple shifts.

Medical professionals located in a tent by the site are taking the temperatures of workers as they enter, after which they get a colored wristband showing they have been screened.

在另一家项目，钱伯斯的公司正在哈佛医学院开展工作，各个方面都在进行各种交易以完成他们的工作。

While the safety measures are vital, one potential downside is loss of efficiency, Chambers says. Before the outbreak of COVID-19, there were 200 workers on site at any one time. “It will take two weeks, if not a couple of months, to get fully back to the same amount of manpower on the site,” says Chambers of the Children’s project.

A New World at the Office

While Baker’s plan, released May 18, allows offices to start reopening on May 25, Robin Greenleaf, president and founder of Boston-based Architectural Engineers and chair-elect of the American Council of Engineering Cos., says she is not rushing to get employees to return to the firm’s downtown office, having recently sent out surveys to gauge their comfort level.

All but three employees had been using public transportation to commute to their offices before COVID-19, so driving into Boston, already a difficult proposition with scarce parking, and in normal times, fierce traffic, is not necessarily an option, she says.

Greenleaf说：“人们期待着回来的友情，但它们可能会如何工作以及如何保持人与人之间的六英尺距离。”“我不会预计我们的任何人都不会回来兼职，而且不会开始一个月。”

Nik Middleton, CEO and founder of Boston-based design firm CUBE 3, also is in no hurry to rush workers back to the office. Middleton says he plans to initially have just half his staff report to work at the company’s offices in Lawrence and Boston, while splitting those groups into smaller segments to further reduce the risk of anyone getting sick. “If anyone contracts the virus, it won’t bring down my entire office,” he says.

Ben Goldfarb, vice president at Nauset Construction, says the company has created two different kitchens in its Needham, Mass., offices, “in order to keep the volume (of foot traffic) down.”

PPE挑战

行业高管说，准备重新打开的最大挑战之一就是简单地将面具，面罩和其他安全重新打开所需的个人防护装备排成一致。

Greenleaf说，她已经花了数周的时间来搜寻Amazon.com的供应，并且尚未遇到任何清洁解决方案，而Cube 3的Middleton表示，消毒剂和湿巾是最难破解的坚果。

Nauset’s Goldfarb says his firm finally received a shipment of face masks a month after first ordering them. “FEMA stopped the order and took part of it,” he says. “It was unpredictable.”

Faced with a similar problem, Consigli took a different approach, teaming up with a pair of local suppliers. The company found a business in Maine to make face masks designed to be comfortable enough for construction workers to wear.

Consigli与小型酿酒厂“从华盛顿特区到缅因州”合作，在危机中开始洗手。

A team made up of staff from across the company, from carpenters to IT and marketing employees, spent countless hours pouring sanitizer into bottles, ensuring that the company got what it needed while donating the rest.

“We are buying hand sanitizer in bulk and bottling ourselves,” Consigli says. “We went ahead and procured all the necessary PPE before anybody told us to. We got a good jump on it early on.”