Elizabeth Carias.
Elizabeth Carias, 30
Project manager at Shawmut Design and Construction
If a luxury brand needs a new retail shop built, Elizabeth Carias is on the job.
The project manager at Shawmut has worked on several stores in the massive Shops & Restaurants at Hudson Yards, including Dior’s and Soul Cycle’s outposts. One of her most recent projects was Tiffany & Co.’s location in the mall, which was a challenge because much of Hudson Yards was already open during construction and each luxury client requires a lot of care on its specific sites.
“They’re a very high-end retail client and they love their high-end finishes,” Carias said. “It’s being as careful as possible, [to] protect everything and execute to the details they want as a company.”
Carias joined Shawmut six years ago and was promoted to project manager three years ago. Her big break came when she was given the task to build a 24,000-square-foot visitor center in California for one retail client — whom she declined to name — with just a five-month deadline.
“Because the client was so happy with the work, they brought us into their main campus to help with their executive wing,” Carias said. “That was very important in my career; it helped me to get to the bigger jobs.”
Even with the coronavirus pandemic pausing construction for a few months, Carias stayed busy staying up to date with the correct guidelines to restart. Once work was allowed to resume, she dove in on work for a flagship location for a luxury brand in Manhattan (which she can’t name).
“It’s difficult,” Carias said about managing a job site post-COVID. “We’re doing all the protocols and everything required for the Department of Buildings, for social distancing on-site, and keeping people as separated as possible … We’re managing contact tracing to help minimize and control this.”
Carias grew up in Bergen County, N.J., and earned a bachelor’s in architecture from the City College of New York. She later earned a master’s in finance from Boston University. She got her start working on residential developments for Pantheon Construction while finishing her bachelor’s, and realized the actual building aspect of projects interested her more than the design process.
She bounced around at Shawmut, first in Connecticut, then California and back to Connecticut before she returned to New York. When she’s not working, Carias likes to paint, travel, read and learn about the wine industry.
Carias lives in Port Washington, Long Island, with her boyfriend and one-year-old Pomsky dog.
