Anthony Coscia

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In June, Coscia received the Industry Service Award from NAIOP New Jersey, and it’s not hard to see why. He’s a partner at Windels Marx – the firm he’s been with for nearly 40 years and where he’s a member of the Executive Committee. In that work, he focuses on corporate, commercial and real estate matters, concentrating on the financial side of things. He’s also chairman of Amtrak and vice chair and one of the trustees of the Gateway Development Program Corp., putting him squarely in the middle of the biggest infrastructure project in the U.S.

After years of fits and starts, federal funding for the Gateway project is finally moving after the passage of the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that was signed into law in November. The package provides $30 billion for Amtrak to make Northeast Corridor improvements and $11 billion in other grants. And a lot of that is thanks to Coscia, one of Gateway’s biggest advocates.

The Gateway Program made moves to install former NJDOT Commissioner Kris Kolluri as CEO this spring. And then in June, Amtrak made its own major announcement on the project: that it awarded a contract for preliminary design options on work that will bring the first new tracks, platforms and concourses to New York Penn Station in more than 100 years, roughly doubling its capacity from the west to alleviate issues in the problematic Northeast Corridor.

At the time, Coscia said that the expansion “will help reduce our carbon footprint, create new jobs, and improve how people in the region work, live and travel.”

Accepting the NAIOP award, he thanked his Windels Marx team, and mused on the concept of service—paying it forward. “I hope that at some point in the future, there’s someone standing up here being honored the way you’re giving me this honor today, who in some small way, I had a way of helping them get to that point because that would truly make it feel like the time I spent was well worth it.” It doesn’t look like that’s going to be a hard prophecy to fulfill.