Construction Junction

Tackling Four Major Projects in Massive Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Plan

by Tom Stabile

At about 1 p.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks that destroyed the Twin Towers and killed more than 2,700, Peter Marchetto, Bovis Lend Lease’s CEO, got a call from New York City officials asking whether his company could help on the obvious task ahead – cleaning up and rebuilding at the World Trade Center.

Within hours, Bovis started work that soon involved debris removal, search and rescue aid, demolition, and building support structures onsite, as well as construction of temporary facilities nearby for the Red Cross, medical examiner, police, and others, according to an account given by Michael Feigin, a Bovis executive vice president, to a U.S. Senate committee in November 2005.

Bovis soon joined three other New York contractors that the city asked to help in the immediate cleanup – Turner Construction, AMEC Construction Management, and Tully Construction. In early 2002, Bovis and AMEC took over coordination of the cleanup, which ended up lasting 265 days and using 2,300 workers.

That early and prominent role influenced Bovis’s desire to stay on, says James Abadie, senior vice president and principal-in-charge of the New York office.

“We were hoping we were going to be involved in the reconstruction – especially the 9-11 Memorial,” he adds. “For Pete and I, this was a personal thing. We wanted to finish what we started.”

advertisement

The projects are all complex and controversial, with the memorial project getting stalled last year before a review and redesign got it back on track, and the 130 Liberty deconstruction hitting many roadblocks. And working on the crowded site provides constant challenges, particularly with erection of the 2.6-million-sq-ft Freedom Tower by New York’s Tishman Construction only feet away from both the memorial and transportation hub jobs.

“We’re working right next to each other, and it takes a lot of coordination,” Abadie says. “We’re playing well in the sandbox.”

Progress is visible, says Catherine McVay Hughes, vice chairperson of Community Board 1 serving Lower Manhattan.

“Looking at the site, there a lot of crane booms,” she says. “Finally, we’re very excited about it.”

While the memorial is not the biggest project in terms of cost or scope, the complex taking up 8 of the 16 acres in the World Trade Center footprint has been under intense scrutiny from the public and local officials from the start.

“We knew there were going to be a lot of issues on the memorial,” Abadie says.

Bovis was tapped in 2006 for what was billed as a $493 million effort to build Reflecting Absence, the memorial concept designed by New York’s Handel Architects, San Francisco’s Peter Walker and Partners Landscape Architects, and Davis Brody Bond of New York. But after a preconstruction review, Bovis found that the project was going to cost another $172 million and require $300 million in infrastructure tasks that weren’t in the plans.

Photo by Jack Caravanos

After Bovis reported its concerns, New York state and city officials asked Frank Sciame, CEO of New York’s Sciame Construction, to get the project back into line. The report Sciame produced in summer 2006 outlined a plan to trim construction costs to $510 million and shift project oversight and $178 million in infrastructure work to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site.

Abadie says that Bovis has since moved the project toward its planned opening on Sept. 11, 2009, issuing a foundation work contract to E.E. Cruz of Holmdel, N.J., and a steel fabrication-erection contract to Owen Steel of Columbia, S.C., with Cornell & Co. of Westville, N.J., as erector. Major ongoing tasks include maintaining and protecting the original box beam column footings along the perimeter of the Twin Towers footprint and building new footings that will hold up the memorial complex. Steel erection begins this fall.

On the nearby transportation hub that will be the permanent terminal for the Port Authority’s PATH subway system, Bovis is part of the Phoenix Constructors team that includes Fluor Enterprises of Irving, Texas; Skanska USA Civil of New York; and Granite Northeast Construction, a division of Granite Construction of Watsonville, Calif. Abadie says the joint venture approach helped to limit liability.

“We would have never gone after it alone because of the risk,” he adds.

Steel erection for the hub was set to start in late spring, Abadie says. Other major tasks this year will include relocating the entrance of the existing temporary PATH station; excavating onsite to 70 ft in areas where it now is 40 ft deep; underpinning and supporting New York City Transit’s 1 and 9 subway lines that cross the site; and building the slurry wall bathtub around the site’s eastern perimeter.

To the east of the site, Bovis and PB are consulting on the reconfiguration of six subway stations to create the Fulton Street center, which will eventually ease transfers for 275,000 passengers using 11 New York City Transit subway lines. The 215,000-sq-ft complex will have new passageways, mezzanines, and a grand entry hall topped by a glass-domed atrium.

Further south, Bovis is managing the floor-by-floor deconstruction of the former Deutsche Bank tower at 130 Liberty St., which was battered by debris from the Twin Towers. The project has had many planning rounds to ensure the work does not spread contaminants or disrupt the search for remains of Sept. 11 victims.

By mid-spring, crews had abated half of the building and removed the top four floors. Bovis and John Galt Corp. of the Bronx, a demolition contractor, were also awaiting final approval of their request to add $30 million to the original $75 million contract to reflect actual project costs.

Then, in late May, a 15-ft-long steam pipe fell from the 36th floor and damaged a firehouse across the street, injuring two firefighters. The city’s Department of Buildings halted the deconstruction work for two weeks before approving a revised demolition and site protection plan that Bovis developed. The agency may fine John Galt up to $5,000 for the incident.

The accident worried members of a community advisory panel for the 130 Liberty project on which McVay Hughes serves. She says the panel is anxious for the work to finish on time because the site will house a garage complex intended to ease vehicle congestion in the area.

“But we want to make sure it’s done safely and that they don’t take any short cuts to get it done this year,” she adds.

In the bigger picture, however, the rebuilding effort appears to be on track

“The community is thrilled that there is positive momentum at the World Trade Center site,” McVay Hughes says.