Outsourcing project management to TCG does not constitute extra expense — it is a self-recovering cost.
Risk Eliminated
We see what others miss — before it becomes a change order. We protect you against compliance failures.
Zero Surprises
Three to five hundred daily decisions. We own every one that matters.
Total Control
Real-time dashboards, a full audit trail and lender-ready reporting.
Your Vision Delivered
On time. On budget. Exactly as promised.
Time Reclaimed
You get your time back. We orchestrate and coordinate every vendor input — a streamlined approach, and no noise.
Services
Four disciplines. One accountable manager.
Our team is expert in project management, construction management, cost control and facilities planning — and most adept at managing the process that draws every aspect of a relocation, consolidation or retrofit together.
Project Management
A client-centered approach applied to the management of scope, organization, quality, cost, time and people — through planning, organizing, implementing and controlling.
Value and Risk Management applied holistically across every phase of a program. Economic assessment, risk and uncertainty addressed through a proven value methodology.
Representing clients through every phase of real estate investment, financing, development and operations — from residential new builds to conversions and renovations.
“I would not think to start a construction project without The Coughlan Group. They bring a wealth of talent and knowledge to all aspects of the project.”
Fran Marmer
VP Human Resources, International Council of Shopping Centers
Selected Clients
Twenty-six years of work for owners who don’t accept surprises.
We don’t just manage projects. We protect your capital and deliver peace of mind.
We work only for you.
We’re not the cheapest — we’re the safest.
We’ve never lost a client’s money or a lender’s trust.
Online Project Management
Full service project management communication, document exchange and coordination system. Existing clients sign in to the secure portal for project records, procedures, templates and RFP submissions.
Value-enhancing services, delivered by people who answer only to you.
The Coughlan Group is dedicated to providing value-enhancing services to its customers. Our staff of highly skilled and experienced professionals — experts in Project, Cost, Construction and Real Estate Development Management — forms a partnership with every client to develop a customized management strategy for each project initiative entrusted in its care.
TCG Background
An independent project management consulting firm
26 years in business as TCG
Office located in NYC
$5M professional insurance
Professionals with over 80 years of combined industry experience
A local firm with local knowledge
What we do
TCG provides the tools and processes of project management that are at the forefront of meeting the diverse and ever-challenging real estate needs of our corporate clients. Our team analyzes project requirements and objectives, develops budgets, schedules and definitions of performance to determine the deliverables expected by our clients.
How we do it
Remaining focused on the operational, financial, quality and time-to-market goals of our clients, our services create and preserve value, specialized knowledge and local expertise. Our objectivity and depth of experience managing similar projects is brought to bear on every assignment.
Why it holds
Increasingly, competitive pressures are forcing companies to concentrate resources on core activities. Many firms outsource the management of their construction or real estate projects and non-core support services to industry experts such as TCG.
About Our Firm
Michael Coughlan — President & Partner
As President, Michael oversees and participates in all aspects of The Coughlan Group business activities. He is proficient with the use of project management processes and systems, and adept at applying the appropriate solution and methods to individual projects and clients.
Michael studied architecture and building technology in Cork City, Ireland. After graduation and immigration to England, he attended Henley Management College, Oxfordshire, and studied for an Executive MBA in Project Management.
Michael has gained 40 years of experience in the industry. His architectural and construction experience is international. While residing as an architect in London in the 1980’s, he was involved with Fitch & Company in developing and implementing the retail expansion of Oxford Street and other prominent locales. In addition, Michael was involved in corporate, retail, institutional and exhibition projects in Spain, England and Ireland.
Since relocating to the United States in 1990, he has held several prominent project management positions — a few of which are listed here.
Our growth continues to be controlled by the ability of our president to remain involved in the critical aspects of all our projects.
Personally involved in every project the firm manages
Merger of PricewaterhouseCoopers
Merger of Marsh & McLennan and Johnson Higgins, and follow-on work nationally
Hotel Kitano — design & construction, NYC
The re-design & renovation of the 85-room Ronald McDonald House in NYC
The Skirball Foundation offices renovations in NYC
Touro College — School of Nursing, School of Pharmacy & master budgeting for the Valhalla Campus
Audemars Piguet North America — service centers, retail and office spaces in the USA since 2006
Stamford Hospital — operating theatres, Bennett Cancer Center, cardiac center, GE nuclear camera, IMRT room, emergency rooms, IT infrastructure upgrade
NY Foundling (The Foundling) — building renovation, NYC
Ferring Pharmaceuticals, NY & NJ
Jaguar Land Rover & Maserati, Manhattan
Twenty-six years, hundreds of projects, zero claims.
The Coughlan Group utilizes a client-centered project management approach. We apply this system to the management of scope, organization, quality, cost, time and people. Value enhancement and risk reduction are the underlying principles that guide every step of our involvement in each assignment.
What We Offer
Six service lines, and the four functions run through all of them.
The Coughlan Group utilizes a client-centered project management approach. We apply this system to the management of scope, organization, quality, cost, time and people. Value enhancement and risk reduction are the underlying principles that guide every step of our involvement in each assignment.
Scope management, at every stage of a project
Conceptual DevelopmentDetermining and documenting the best approach for achieving the project’s objectives.
Scope StatementDocumented description of project output, approach and content.
Work AuthorizationProcess of sanctioning work.
Scope ReportingProcess for periodically documenting the status.
Control MechanismSystems introduced to ensure completion of project tasks.
Project Close-OutProviding acceptance of the project by the sponsor.
Specific management tools
Organization Charts
A tool for managing the reporting structure and clarifying roles and responsibilities.
Comprehensive Budgets
Includes a column for potential exposures which may impact the project’s critical milestones. Not simply an accounting of dollars spent, but an effective tool for projecting and anticipating future expenditures.
Milestone Schedules
Focuses on results. Tracks interim objectives and their impact on completion, so the plan stays robust as new information arrives and new work is identified.
Procurement Policies
Requests for proposal for all services engaged on the project, ensuring a fair apples-to-apples comparison of scope to price from every respondent.
Value and Risk Management
The Coughlan Group uses the term Value and Risk Management (VRM) in a holistic approach applied in different phases of a program or project. Through the proper use of TCG’s value methodology, economic assessment, risk and uncertainty are addressed. Construction projects have acquired a reputation for confrontation between contracting parties — major claims and over-expenditure, delays and business interruption, poor overall value for money, client discontent. The causes can often be traced back to misalignment of expectations from the outset. TCG acts as the facilitator that prevents it.
Project budgeting & estimating
Milestone and detailed project scheduling / planning
Thorough RFP and bid evaluation tools
Objective and concise evaluation of options
Accurate and comprehensive cost control tools
Contract development and administration
Document review and value engineering
Value engineering — case study
New York Foundling, Long Island City
Costs were segregated and re-tested line by line before commitment. Value engineering
brought hard cost down from 72% to 62% of the total, releasing budget back into
furniture, fittings and equipment rather than into the build.
$921,772
saved against the approved budget
21%
of total project cost
Hard cost before VE72%
Hard cost after VE62%
Complex project types we manage
Infrastructure and base building projects
Churn projects
Tenant fit-out
Multi-site programmes
Occupancy planning
Ground-up development
When a project needs re-focusing
We take a project apart and put it back together so that it focuses on the value-added, results-oriented requirements of the project objectives.
Project organization analysis (people review)
Project deliverables review and assessment (budget, quality, specification review)
Work-flow analysis (schedule review)
Value analysis — project systems, materials and finishes cost review
For projects where schedule and procurement decide the outcome.
The Coughlan Group provides construction management advisory services to its clients. Projects where aggressive schedules and procurement strategies dictate the success or failure of project delivery benefit from TCG’s experience in this area.
A comprehensive approach
TCG provides the following services in response to construction management advisory requirements.
Design team management (pre-construction services)
Programming and project feasibility analysis
Cost benefit analysis
Logistics and schedule management
Construction format advice
Construction management and oversight
Procurement management
Scope of pre-construction services
Due diligence inspections
Concept budgeting & scheduling
Site logistics planning
Estimating
Permitting & submittal management
Scope of construction management advisory services
Detailed project schedules
Contractor pre-qualification
Contractor competitive bidding
Shop drawing & submittal management
Project cost monitoring and reporting
Project communications management
Project closeout management
Commissioning & occupancy
Installation, occupancy and close-out
On completion of construction, TCG coordinates and monitors system start-ups and approvals including furniture, electrical, telecommunication and equipment orders, and their delivery and installation. We develop an RFP for issuance to movers and other vendors necessary to complete the physical move.
After handover TCG participates in final payment negotiations with all vendors, contractors and consultants, approves and recommends the final payment schedule, prepares a final reconciliation of project costs with variance explanations, and performs a warranty site review after substantial completion to evaluate the necessity of warranty claims.
TCG’s Real Estate Development Project Management Group represents clients active throughout the world in all phases of real estate investment, financing, development and operations. Our work ranges from residential new builds to conversions and renovations, with significant expertise in virtually every area of real estate development planning, design and construction.
Development management services
Highest and best use
Development feasibility studies
Development advisory
Redevelopment
Build-to-suit
Areas of specialty
Corporate headquartersCultural institutionsData centresHealth careHigher educationHotelsInstitutional real estateMixed-useMuseumsNot for profitOfficeResidentialRetail
The TCG edge
Understanding our clients’ businesses and their transaction objectives and goals
Value-added business counselling beyond the negotiating and management skills that are normally a project manager’s primary responsibility
Expertise, experience, resources and staffing to complete transactions of any size or complexity
Project due diligence, planning, financial pro-forma analysis, resource management and implementation
Ground-up and conversion projects
Ronald McDonald House — East 60th Street143,000 rsf new 16-storey building$96m
Adelphi University — Ruth S. Harley Building100,000 rsf rebuild; extension, interiors, façades, roofs, landscaping$33m
Claremont Riding Academy — West 89th Street35,000 rsf condominium conversion$25m
74 Grand Street16,000 rsf new 6-storey building$10m
1800 2nd Avenue20,625 rsf new condominium building$7m
The decisions taken before a lease is signed set the cost and the schedule of everything that follows. TCG works alongside the client through portfolio analysis, site selection, due diligence and lease negotiation — so the space committed to is the space the business actually needs.
Before the lease is signed
01
Portfolio analysis and optimisation
02
Business function versus location and space strategy
03
Broker interview and selection
04
Space and site due diligence
05
Space selection
06
Lease negotiation and work letter development
07
Working with the client throughout the selection process
What we bring to the table
Understanding our clients’ businesses and their transaction objectives and goals
Value-added business counselling beyond the negotiating and management skills that are normally a project manager’s primary responsibility
A combination of expertise, experience, resources and staffing to undertake transactions of any size or complexity
The full range of the Group’s experience in all areas of concern to real estate clients, including due diligence, planning, financial pro-forma analysis, resource management and project implementation
Tell us what you are planning and we will tell you what it takes.
Following the capital project, TCG provides maintenance management of all building systems — ensuring the infrastructure is maintained properly and protecting the investment of our clients.
Operations management
Work-flow and productivity improvement
Performance measurement and standards
System evaluation and selection
Process and systems training
Accountable cost control and waste reduction
Cost-effective purchase management
An auditable paper trail
Procurement tracking and consolidated order processing
Facilities maintenance management
Due diligence report on maintenance, service and construction
Maintenance service scope development
Vendor and contract management
Asset life-cycle maintenance review
Sustainability review implementation
Ongoing facility management clients
TelevisaUnivision — New York & New Jersey
Touro College
BNF — New York
Tell us what you are planning and we will tell you what it takes.
Sustainability implementation management covers the building envelope, its mechanical systems and the way it is actually run — because efficiency that is designed in and then operated badly is not efficiency at all.
Envelope and analysis
Exterior envelope review
Interior review and energy efficiency analysis (ASHRAE 189)
Interior envelope
Lighting and energy analysis
Light control performance
Mechanical and water systems
HVAC fresh-air intake analysis
HVAC maintenance — clean air
HVAC balancing
Water use analysis — recycling and treatment
Cooling towers
Irrigation and rainwater recycling
Fixtures — age, LED review
Steps to building efficiency improvements
Building automated system suitability
Building system set points — stop tweaking systems
Training staff for the size of the building
Keep good staff — train to reduce turnover
Keep outside air dampers and purge systems working
Keep equipment updated rather than antiquated or out of warranty
Develop a comprehensive building operations plan
Tell us what you are planning and we will tell you what it takes.
If you are working with us on a live project and do not have a login, email Michael directly and he will set you up. If you have a login but cannot get in, use the password reminder on the sign-in page before contacting us.
Without exception, clients who have had multiple assignments have continued to engage TCG to provide project management services. We believe this fact, more than any single project’s success, represents our commitment to client-focused partnerships.
$5B+
delivered
Zero
claims in 26 years
80+
years of combined experience
$5M
professional insurance
Testimonials
What clients say.
“For nearly 20 years, The Coughlan Group has been a trusted partner and consummate professional in construction project management. Their expertise, integrity, and commitment have made a lasting impact on both our projects and our program.”
Wini Cudjoe
Chief Operations & Management Officer, Ronald McDonald House New York
“I would not think to start a construction project without The Coughlan Group. They bring a wealth of talent and knowledge to all aspects of the project.”
Fran Marmer
VP Human Resources, International Council of Shopping Centers
“In all projects, TCG delivered successful projects by providing highly skilled project and schedule management along with effective oversight of project documentation and the associated costs. They are a relentless advocate for their client in all areas.”
Peter J. Lynch
Vice President, Real Estate & Facilities, TelevisaUnivision
“The Coughlan Group provides us with proactive strategic planning through their extensive knowledge of design and construction costs and practices nationwide. We consider their project management skills a value-added service.”
Tom Gress & Brian Hanratty
VPs of Design & Construction, Marsh USA
“The Coughlan Group proved to be an invaluable resource during our building renovation and relocation. The firm’s client-centered approach coupled with its knowledge of all facets of project management ensures a cost effective and efficient operation.”
Jennifer Kranich
Director of Human Resources, Ferring Pharmaceuticals
“The Coughlan Group has a great sense of integrity, a strong work ethic and is always committed to serving the best interest of its clients.”
Peter J. Lynch
Director of Office Administration, PDI, Inc.
Kline Medical
“Our project would never have been completed on schedule or within budget without the committed management and attention of The Coughlan Group.”
Mitchell A. Kline, MD PC
Aesthetic and Surgical Dermatology, Kline Medical
NY Citiwise LLC
“The Coughlan Group guided us through unexpected and difficult situations in a very professional and expert manner. The ultimate success of our projects were in large parts due to their commitment and dedication.”
Dan Kingsford
Developer, NY Citiwise LLC
“For nearly 20 years, The Coughlan Group has been a trusted partner and consummate professional in construction project management. Their expertise, integrity, and commitment have made a lasting impact on both our projects and our program.”
Wini Cudjoe
Chief Operations & Management Officer, Ronald McDonald House New York
“I would not think to start a construction project without The Coughlan Group. They bring a wealth of talent and knowledge to all aspects of the project.”
Fran Marmer
VP Human Resources, International Council of Shopping Centers
“In all projects, TCG delivered successful projects by providing highly skilled project and schedule management along with effective oversight of project documentation and the associated costs. They are a relentless advocate for their client in all areas.”
Peter J. Lynch
Vice President, Real Estate & Facilities, TelevisaUnivision
“The Coughlan Group provides us with proactive strategic planning through their extensive knowledge of design and construction costs and practices nationwide. We consider their project management skills a value-added service.”
Tom Gress & Brian Hanratty
VPs of Design & Construction, Marsh USA
“The Coughlan Group proved to be an invaluable resource during our building renovation and relocation. The firm’s client-centered approach coupled with its knowledge of all facets of project management ensures a cost effective and efficient operation.”
Jennifer Kranich
Director of Human Resources, Ferring Pharmaceuticals
“The Coughlan Group has a great sense of integrity, a strong work ethic and is always committed to serving the best interest of its clients.”
Peter J. Lynch
Director of Office Administration, PDI, Inc.
Kline Medical
“Our project would never have been completed on schedule or within budget without the committed management and attention of The Coughlan Group.”
Mitchell A. Kline, MD PC
Aesthetic and Surgical Dermatology, Kline Medical
NY Citiwise LLC
“The Coughlan Group guided us through unexpected and difficult situations in a very professional and expert manner. The ultimate success of our projects were in large parts due to their commitment and dedication.”
Dan Kingsford
Developer, NY Citiwise LLC
By Sector
Examples from our client roster.
Corporate Interiors
TelevisaUnivision — multiple projects
Interpublic Group — multiple projects
McKinsey & Company
PricewaterhouseCoopers
J&H Marsh & McLennan
Marsh Advantage America
Marsh Risk Technology
Mercer
Prudential Insurance Company
Audemars Piguet USA
Ferring Pharmaceuticals
The Weinstein Co. NY & LA
Miramax
VEVO.com
Beach Point Capital Management
MSD Capital
CIFC New York & London
EOS Fund Services
Vastardis Capital
Alliance Capital Management
Commerce Bank
Bank One
Sanwa Bank
Toyo Trust Bank
PaineWebber
Western Union — North East
ICSC — multiple projects
RCN Telecom Services
Retail / Special Use
AP House NY — Meatpacking District
Audemars Piguet — flagship & service centre
Omega USA
Mikimoto — multiple projects
Jil Sander Worldwide
Jil Sander / Barneys
Jil Sander / Bergdorf Goodman
H&M NY / NJ / CT
Thierry Mugler Couture / Parfums
Jaguar Land Rover — Manhattan
Maserati — Brooklyn
Alfa Romeo — Brooklyn
Nissan / Infiniti — Manhattan
The Hotel Kitano
Healthcare
NY Presbyterian Hospital
Stamford Hospital
Kline Medical Offices
Skin Specialty Group
RMA of NY
Cultural / Institutional
National Catholic Museum NYC
Central Synagogue
New York Foundling Hospital
Ronald McDonald House NYC
Trinity Church — multiple buildings
St. Luke’s Church, LI
Manhattan Jewish Experience
Touro College
Adelphi University
The Skirball Foundation
Development & Renovations
Cavan Development — NYC
Dominion Management — NYC
Citiwise LLC — NYC
Waldorf Realty Company — NYC
Marlboro Equities — NYC
Maserati Building — Manhattan
322–324 Main St, Port Washington
Hotel feasibility, 439–443 W 54th
Bank One — Charleston, WV
Selected Clients
A short list of the clients we have served.
MikimotoPrudential InsuranceNissan North AmericaAlfa RomeoThe Weinstein Co.Central SynagogueTouro CollegeBeach Point CapitalMSD CapitalCIFCEOS Fund ServicesVastardis CapitalCommerce BankBank OneSanwa BankToyo Trust BankPaineWebberRCN Telecom ServicesThierry MuglerThe Hotel KitanoTrinity ChurchNew York FoundlingNational Catholic MuseumThe Skirball Foundation
Our growth continues to be controlled by the ability of our president to remain involved in the critical aspects of all our projects. Michael reads every enquiry himself.
