At Rusk, we partner with incredibly talented design teams and consultants from New York City and around the world.  We love working with new people, and we will happily connect you to any resource you may need:  

• Owner’s Representative
  
• Architect or Architect of Record
  
• Permit Expediting & Code Consulting
  
• Engineering (Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing, Structural)
  
• Interior Designer
  
• Landscape Designer
  
• Lighting Designer
  
• Realtors
  
• Audio Video Integration and Design

Across 30 years of building premium residences, we have forged valuable relationships and gained unique insights into the New York market. These allow us to help you achieve your particular goals – from budget and schedule to approvals and other challenges – right from the project development phase.

• Budgeting
• Building Approvals
• Longstanding relationships with building architects often allow us to help the design team in their efforts to pass building reviews.
• Permitting
• Constructability Analysis
• 4D Schedule

Rusk is the only New York City General Contractor able to enhance wellness, sleep, focus and productivity through the DARWIN System.

• Site specific water treatment
• Reactive air filtration
• Circadian-aligned lighting systems
• Comfort products including beds, oxygenic green walls and resilient floors.

Rusk carefully opens sections of walls and floors to help determine construction feasibility. We encourage probing every location where walls will be removed and plumbing will be connected, because learning about issues before construction begins can save weeks of work and thousands of dollars.

Rusk can provide full-scale mock-ups for rooms and millwork details, as well as regulatory mock-ups for the Landmarks Preservation Commission approval process.

• Construction Management Budgets
• Lump Sum Estimates
• Risk Management Assessment
• Value Engineering

Rusk will provide a Lump sum price for the construction costs of a completed design and will often promise a time to completion as well.

This early partnership approach between Rusk and our client includes Pre-Construction services (see above) and oversight of all subcontractors on the site through project completion. Fee is a percentage of the cost of work. Advantageous pricing and quality are assured through competitive bidding of the subcontractors.

• Decorative finishes
• Millwork
• Stone & Tile
• Lighting
• Audio visual
• Penthouses
• Townhouses
• Stairs
• Structural Steel
• Exterior landscaping and terraces

With many clients and design teams outside of the New York metropolitan area, Rusk uses collaborative online technologies to quickly resolve details, review progress on the job, see photos, track financials, stay abreast of time-sensitive decisions, and monitor progress from any computer, smartphone or tablet.


• ProCore Construction Management
• 360 degree site photos using ThetaCam
• Onsite Screensharing using Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Facetime, Skype, and GoToMeeting

Project execution must be organized and well-paced. To achieve this, Rusk created the “page-turn” – a day on-site shortly before construction begins. The appropriate parties get together to turn the pages of the drawing set one by one—allowing each subcontractor to ask questions, coordinate details and discuss process. The session may take up to six hours of focused collaboration, but thoroughly flushing out issues gives the design team enough time to address them.

While building high end residential projects in the 1990s, we were also building dialysis units and nuclear imaging centers. We became students of the emerging technologies in plumbing, air conditioning and electrical systems. Today Rusk leads the industry in specialized knowledge of sophisticated systems thanks to our “Mechanical Seminars”—formal, in-house training on the theory and practice of  HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning), gas, drains, water, electric, as well as low-voltage lighting and control systems. Rusk stands alone in this commitment, and the checklists we apply to each of these trades deliver manifest client benefits.

Rusk has always taken safety seriously—for the sake of our employees, our clients and our company. We employ a dedicated trainer for inhouse OSHA instruction, tailored to the needs of high-end residential work. Our superintendents have all required OSHA and DOB licensing, and fully meet competency requirements for their projects, as do our workers and subcontractors. The firm has also studied safety practices in Europe and has adopted many of these standards.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a challenging time for the world and especially New York City. In response to the Coronavirus, we have prioritized formal COVID-19 safety training for all Rusk employees, and we have detailed, COVID-19 specific health and safety protocols for all jobsites and the office. In addition to social distancing, cleaning, and hygiene measures- our best practices include health screenings and temperature readings for all jobsite visitors.

Shortly after inception, Rusk created a Best Practices manual that has grown into more than 20 checklists for quality and durability, comprising more than 700 items. We include these checklists in our subcontracts and build according to them in the field. Each list operates in real time on our construction management application.

Maintaining $15 million liability coverage puts Rusk atop the industry, because success begins with managing risks. Excellence means planning for the unexpected. Part of this means we autopsy each completed project to find how and where we can reduce hiccups and boost quality. To safeguard our clients, we regularly review subcontractor insurance and stay current on intricacies of coverage. In turn, our independent risk manager will gladly consult with clients about their own coverages.

Our projects achieve long-term service life through a 700-item Quality Control Checklist, and Rusk’s dedicated service team. We provide rapid response to emergency issues, as well as long-term care and modification options to address evolving client needs.

As you enjoy living in your home, Rusk offers HVAC maintenance and other preventative care, as well as touch-ups to paint, stone and other items.

Our clients have access to the Rusk Service Department for small projects like renovating a bathroom, redoing a kitchen or changing wallpaper.