At its annual meeting in May, the Greater Boston Plumbing Contractors Association swore in its new officers and executive board, including John Marani III as the organization’s president. He will serve a two-year term.
Marani succeeds Joe Valante, Jr. as GBPCA president. He presided over a difficult period as COVID-19 virtually shut down the region’s construction sites in early 2020 and caused much uncertainty and disruption for the industry. It also dealt a blow to vulnerable people in the community. In response, Valante helped spearhead efforts on behalf of GBPCA and Local 12 to donate about $100,000 to charitable causes.
Through the decades, GBPCA contractors A.H. Burns, Valante Mechanical, and E.H. Marchant Company have all been friendly competitors based in the Quincy area. All three union shops used to belong to the same Quincy local (which has since become part of Local 12). Larry Petrilli of E.H. Marchant, Joe Valante, Sr. of Valante Mechanical, and Marani’s father, John, all supported each other. The contractors borrowed each other’s tools and plumbers. “To me, it’s the way business should be,” Marani says.
Now, the second-generation owners of the shops continue the tradition and work cordially with one another. For example, Marani often calls Mike Petrilli for advice. “Mike is very bright,” he says. “He has helped me a lot through the years.”
Petrilli, who has long been active with the GBPCA (and its predecessor, the PHCC of Greater Boston), encouraged Marani to get involved with the organization. With Marani’s election, the three contractors have each taken their turns leading the group. Petrilli served as president from 2009 to 2011.
Trillium’s story of popularity and success is common among many small-batch breweries over the past decade. The U.S. craft beer renaissance has catapulted the hand-made beer experience into the mainstream. Even so, Trillium’s success has eclipsed most other craft brews.
The industry has seen explosive growth. When a niche this clearly defined presents itself, there are service professionals that specialize and grow with it. EH Marchant Co. is Boston’s resident brewery and restaurant plumbing specialist.
“Many of the general contractors we work for build breweries and restaurants,” says Michael Petrilli, president of EH Marchant. “Fort Point was our first Trillium project, and we’re currently involved with a second.”
From a plumbing standpoint, breweries have very different requirements than the retail and pharmaceutical work that the 116-year-old company often conducts.
“Trillium had two distinct and separate needs at Fort Point as it relates to hot water,” Petrilli continues. “The restaurant and the brewery each have a standalone, instantaneous hot water plant providing different supply temperatures. Efficiency is of some importance on a job like this, but it takes a back seat to the need for redundancy, satisfying peak demand and constant circulation.”
There is a flurry of activity at TD Garden, and it’s not just the Stanley Cup playoffs and Backstreet Boys concerts. There are towers and buildings being erected alongside and above the sports and entertainment arena on the site of the old Boston Garden as well as an expansion of the venue itself. Collectively known as The Hub on Causeway, the almost 1.9 million-square-foot mixed-use project that Delaware North is building with Boston Properties will include two office towers, a residential tower, a hotel, and a podium that will feature a new entertainment performance space, a Star Market, a 15-screen movie theater, and a number of restaurant and retail locations. Valued at $1.2 billion, the aptly named Hub is transforming Causeway Street into one of the city’s foremost destinations.
Throughout the four-year construction span of the Hub development, many GBPCA contractors have been involved including: JC Cannistraro, which worked on the boutique, 272-room citizenM hotel; A. H. Burns, the plumbing contractor for the Star Market grocery store; Valante Mechnaical, which worked on the tenant fitout for Rapid7, the cybersecurity firm which moved its headquarters to one of the office towers; Douglas R. Howard, which did some of the remodeling work inside TD Garden; and E.H. Marchant, which is handling the plumbing for Big Night Live, the entertainment and nightlife space being operated by Big Night Entertainment and Live Nation.
The multi-level club will include five bars, two kitchens supporting two restaurants and private dining areas, and a total of 44 toilets among Big Night’s bathrooms. Local 12 plumbers installed an array of eight Navien tankless water heaters at the site. The units generate a tremendous amount of hot water virtually in an instant, according to Matt Wade, foreman for E.H. Marchant. The heaters, which are piped in tandem, function as one modular system.
“If there is a problem with one unit, we can trade it out without impacting the whole system,” Wade explains. “The Naviens work on demand. If there is light use, only one unit might kick on. As demand increases, others will turn on.”
Big Night will accommodate as many as 2,000 patrons, including 1,500 in its main showroom. There will also be VIP rooms, along with bathrooms and prep kitchens on the 2.5 level above the performance space. The mezzanine level is supported and suspended from a structure above, not down to the floor.
“That makes plumbing a challenge,” acknowledges David Story, superintendent for Trinity Building and Construction, the general contractor for the Big Night Live project. There was a very tight space for using building information modeling (BIM) to coordinate the time-consuming, critical work performed by the plumbers as well as the sprinkler and HVAC contractors. Another challenge that the project posed was the sound acoustic work done on the high ceilings to mitigate the music and noise emanating from the concert hall. Kinetic hangers were used to frame the ceiling with four layers of drywall, which made it difficult to rough in the mechanical and plumbing systems.
“Having a subcontractor like E.H. Marchant is great,” Story says about the GBPCA shop. “They’ve done work like this before. I know we can count on them.”
“That makes plumbing a challenge,” acknowledges David Story, superintendent for Trinity Building and Construction, the general contractor for the Big Night Live project. There was a very tight space for using building information modeling (BIM) to coordinate the time-consuming, critical work performed by the plumbers as well as the sprinkler and HVAC contractors. Another challenge that the project posed was the sound acoustic work done on the high ceilings to mitigate the music and noise emanating from the concert hall. Kinetic hangers were used to frame the ceiling with four layers of drywall, which made it difficult to rough in the mechanical and plumbing systems.
“Having a subcontractor like E.H. Marchant is great,” Story says about the GBPCA shop. “They’ve done work like this before. I know we can count on them.”
Established in 1903, it recently celebrated its 100th anniversary, a rare and admirable feat. The ship is one of Boston’s oldest operating plumbing contractors and one of the area’s oldest businesses of any type. Much has stayed the same over the long course of E.H. Marchant’s history. It has been a union shop from day one, for example. It is also still highly regarded for its service work. But, like most successful businesses, much has changed as well. Under (Michael) Petrilli’s guidance, particularly over the past five years, the shop has expanded significantly and now focuses primarily on new construction, remodeling, and other contract work.
“We take pride in our reputation as a company of high-quality mechanics that can quickly and efficiently solve problems. But there’s a lot of other work out there,” Michael says. “We used to go in after the big guys built the buildings, and we’d be there for the next twenty years keeping the place running. Now we can build it and maintain it from the start.”
In order to handle the increased volume of work, E.H. Marchant has tripled the number of plumbers on the job over the last six years. Michael says that Local No. 12 has been a key part of the shop’s growth. “We’ve been able to bring on highly trained and skilled plumbers,” he says. “We can get the job done quickly and correctly – and that allows us to be competitive.”
