$1 Billion Contract Award for WTC Transit Hub

The Port Authority awards a construction management contract to a four-company joint venture. Also, New York City outlines a four-year capital plan for $40.7 billion in municipal infrastructure work.

Contract Let for WTC Tunnels

A new phase of work is beginning on the $2 billion World Trade Center transportation hub following the award by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey of a $1 billion contract to a joint venture composed of four large contractors and construction managers.

Since construction started last September on the hub, the Port Authority has been using call-in contractors to do preliminary work, according to an agency spokesman. The new award is for the construction of approximately 3,000 ft. of pedestrian tunnels that will eventually connect ferries at the World Financial Center to the new hub and to Metropolitan Transportation Authority subway lines.

The winning team, which calls itself Phoenix Constructors, consists of Slattery Skanska, a division of Skanska USA Civil that is based in Queens; New York's Bovis Lend Lease; the Granite Construction Northeast subsidiary of Granite Construction, which is based in Watsonville, Calif.; and Fluor Enterprises, based in Aliso Viejo, Calif.

Work was scheduled to begin in March on the design by the architectural joint venture consultant of New York-based STV, New York-based DMJM Harris, and Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, who is the design architect. A partial opening is planned for 2009.

Bloomberg Unveils Capital Plans

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently outlined a draft fiscal plan to invest more than $40.7 billion into the municipal infrastructure over the next four years.

Among the major items in the preliminary capital plan, which includes funding from state and federal sources, are:

• $11.1 billion for the public schools
• $2.5 billion for bridge maintenance
• $1 billion for the Croton Water Filtration Facility in the Bronx
• $864 million for street reconstruction
• $483 million for sanitation transfer stations
• $265 million for infrastructure and parks around the new Yankee and Shea stadiums
• $133 million for the conversion of the James A. Farley Post Office in Manhattan into Moynihan Station
• $100 million for improvements along the Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfront in Brooklyn
• $31 million for the Queens Museum
• and $22 million for Snug Harbor Cultural Center, an 83-acre park on Staten Island.

The mayor also presented a $52.2 billion Fiscal Year 2007 preliminary budget, which includes reconstruction and maintenance funds for several city projects.

New Foreign Trade Warehouse

Construction of a new 680,000-sq.-ft. warehouse began on a 55-acre plot of land in Cranbury, N.J., as part of a redevelopment of properties around Exit 8A of the New Jersey Turnpike.

Rockefeller Group Development Corp., a New York-based real estate developer, and Atlanta-based Industrial Developments International are overseeing construction of a Class A warehouse and distribution building that will feature 36-ft. clear ceilings and 116 loading docks. The building, slated for completion in the third quarter this year, will have Foreign Trade Zone status, which allows streamlined customs review for the warehousing and distribution activities of the tenants.

The new warehouse is part of redevelopment efforts around Exit 8A, where Rockefeller Group already has developed 3.5 million sq. ft. of warehouse and distribution facilities on 230 acres since 2000. Cushman & Wakefield of New Jersey, a real estate firm based in East Rutherford, has managed the overall redevelopment strategy for the area.

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