N.Y.C. Extends Williamsburg Bridge Rehab Project by $80 Million

by Jim Parsons

Though it was originally slated to wrap up this spring, a two-decade-long rehabilitation program for the Williamsburg Bridge will continue through 2008, according to the New York City Department of Transportation.

Rather than complete the comprehensive structural makeover of the century-old 7,308-ft long structure in June as originally scheduled, the agency has extended Contract 8, the last of the program's major rehabilitation packages, to address tasks that were not part of the original scope of work. That decision will keep designer Parsons Transportation Group of New York, contractor Koch Skanska of Carteret, N.J., and other consultants on the job for another 18 months.

"N.Y.C. DOT wanted to take advantage of the experience and resources that are already in place," says Craig Chin, an agency spokesman.

Begun in 2003, Contract 8 involved major upgrades to the bridge's main towers, including replacing bearings and installing custom-cut steel plates to provide additional strength and compensate for a century's worth of increasing stress that had bent the tower tops inward toward the bridge center.

Now, the department has added several major assignments to Contract 8, including seismic repair and strengthening of intermediate tower structural steel column bases. Other new tasks involve encasing existing granite piers with reinforced concrete and a new granite exterior, as well as replacing steel multi-roller bearings at two locations in the towers.

"The bearings were no longer rolling as required and radiographic examination revealed stress cracking of upper and lower castings," Chin says.

In the new work, the project team will install movable barriers, a site-specific barrier transfer machine and facility, and lane control signs to manage traffic flow on the bridge's south inner roadway during weekday morning rush hours. In addition, the team will also repair bridge members to address problems found during scheduled and special inspections.

The city transportation agency estimates that materials and labor for these additional tasks will cost $80.3 million, bringing Contract 8's total price tag to approximately $303 million.

Koch Skanska had completed Contract 8's biggest single task - sandblasting and repainting the two 2,800-ft long steel stiffening trusses built tight to the roadway - during a marathon, 167-day effort in the summer of 2003 that aimed to minimize lane closures and avoid a $50,000-per-day liquidated damage penalty.

Although minimizing disruptions to the Williamsburg Bridge's daily volume of 100,000 vehicles and 110,000 subway passengers has been a priority since the rehabilitation program began in 1987, Chin says that some lane closures will be required during replacement of the intermediate tower bearings.

"The designer has detailed a partial support for the cantilevered floorbeam bracket that supports the outer roadways," he says. "That will allow us to close only one of the lanes, reducing the impact to the traveling public."

N.Y.C. Agency Taps Eight Firms as Small Project CMs

by Alex Padalka and Heather Hatfield

The New York City Department of Design and Construction announced the selection of eight firms that will be on a short list to compete for construction management contracts for non-infrastructure projects valued at less than $25 million.

The agency, which provides design and construction services for more than 20 city agencies, expects to issue the “indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity” contracts this spring to the following firms: AFG Construction Management of Washington, D.C.; Carter & Burgess of Fort Worth, Texas; Gilbane Building of Providence, R.I.; Hill International, of Marlton, N.J.; New York-based TDX Construction; the Liro Group of Syosset, N.Y.; the McCloud Group of Hoboken, N.J.; and San Francisco’s URS Corp. The firms all have local offices to perform the work.

The contracts, which will have two-year terms with an option to renew for a third year, will be awarded through the agency’s structures division, which currently has $2.4 billion of work in progress. The division’s projects include museums, libraries, correctional facilities, and police facilities, though not all of its projects will flow through the new system, according to DDC.

While AFG, Carter & Burgess, Gilbane, McCloud, and TDX have not worked with DDC in the recent past, Liro, Hill, and URS are seasoned consultants with the agency. The firms were selected out of 29 responses to an RFP issued this winter in a quality-based comparison that favored firm experience, key personnel, and organizational capability.

The new program will allow the agency to reduce the amount of time and resources spent on the construction manager selection and assignment process on individual projects, says David Resnick, the agency's deputy commissioner of structures.

“The idea underlying all of this is that we are the agency responsible for matchmaking, which is our primary responsibility,” he adds. “I think this process gives us the flexibility to do it successfully.”

But those already critical of the DDC's reliance on construction managers say this is an expansion of an already questionable initiative. Henry Goldberg, managing partner of Goldberg & Connolly of Rockville Centre, N.Y., a construction and government contracting law firm, says DDC is “relying more extensively on a program that has serious legal concerns,” referring to the city's existing procurement program that uses “CM-Build” contracts.

New York Unveils New Building Code Plan

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled a comprehensive redesign of the decades-old municipal building code earlier this month - a proposal that aims to align it with national and international standards for the first time, boost building safety, and simplify processing for contractors.

The Department of Buildings released the proposed revisions to the existing code after four years of preparation and drafting aided by more than 400 construction industry representatives. The vast revision will largely bring the codes into conformity with the International Code Council, which produces a standard code already in use by 48 states.

New York officials are set to adopt locally tailored versions of five out of the eight ICC code standards: fuel and gas, mechanical, plumbing, electrical, and building, says Patricia Lancaster, who is commissioner of the buildings agency. Unlike the previous city code, which has changed little since 1968, the ICC is revised every three years through a public input process taking in suggestions from users around the country. The city will routinely perform case studies to evaluate the functionality of the national codes and tailor any changes to New York's needs.

In addition to allowing modern touches such as online filing of permits, the new code is intended to be easier to use and navigate, says Benjamin Jones, assistant commissioner for the Model Code Program, the name the buildings department gave to its multiyear code revision process.

The adoption of the new standards is also expected to drastically reduce approval times for new materials and technologies. For example, whereas contractors currently have to obtain a New York-specific Materials and Equipment Acceptance number, or MEA, the new codes will use the ICC's national equipment standards, opening a wider national market for contractors on turn-key projects, says Kate Lindquist, a buildings department spokeswoman.

The proposed construction codes include other new provisions, such as rules for progressive collapse resistance for buildings taller than 300 ft, says Fatma Amer, deputy commissioner for technical affairs at the buildings department. In addition, all new construction would have to meet requirements on vehicular impact design load, high-pressure gas explosion design load, and continuity and ties.

In terms of fire safety, the new code would require a second water supply system in case the sprinkler system main gets severed, as well as larger in-house water reserves for firefighting. In addition to requiring compliance with Local Law 26, which mandated the use of photoluminescent markings on exits, high-rises will also need to have emergency generators to support alarms, emergency lighting, impact-resistant stairwells, and at least one fire elevator serving the building.

The new code also would introduce the city's first mandatory peer review process that would ask professionals not directly involved in a project to review skyscraper plans as a way to safeguard against errors.

During the Model Code process, the agency had to use mediation to settle various points of contention among the 400 industry professionals in order to prepare the code's final draft, Lancaster says.

For instance, in a compromise forced by real estate developers, the agency crafted a compromise to limit the peer review process to specific buildings that meet one of several criteria: a height to width aspect ratio of 7 or greater; 600 ft in height; more than 100,000 sq ft in size; irregular superstructures; a design based on non-linear time history analysis; or special seismic dissipation systems. The process would also apply in cases when a building official specifically requests a review.

Lancaster says she does not expect serious opposition due to the compromises made.

The codes, if approved by the City Council and mayor, would go into effect on July 1, 2008. The council is set to review the draft and hold public hearings this spring, with an expectation that it would adopt a new code by July 1.

Once the new code is adopted, developers, designers, and contractors will have the option of using either the old code or the new codes on new projects until July 1, 2009, when the new codes would become mandatory for all new construction.

Panel Explores Boom's Complications

Though it was planned to discuss the next century of New York City's infrastructure improvements, a recent panel discussion sponsored by the Greater New York Construction User Council turned into a veritable "State of the Industry" analysis that focused heavily on the construction sector's ability to handle the high volume of anticipated projects over the next 20 years.

The event, entitled "New York City Infrastructure: The Next 100 Years," featured a panel of Mysore Nagaraja, president of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Capital Construction Company; Rohit Aggarwala, director of the N.Y.C. Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability; and Doug Currey, regional director of the New York State Department of Transportation.

While they originally planned to focus on upcoming projects such as a new $7.4 billion Hudson River passenger rail tunnel between New York and New Jersey, a new Tappan Zee Bridge between New York's Rockland and Westchester counties, and the $3.8 billion first leg of the Second Avenue Subway line that broke ground in April in Manhattan, the conversation quickly turned to the current climate of the industry, and specifically, the effects that a slew of megaprojects on the horizon may have on the region.

Tom Clancy, a URS Corp. vice president who moderated the discussion, said New York is currently going through what is literally a "tale of two cities."

"On one side, we're seeing an unprecedented era of construction," he added. "There are many major projects going on. In those terms, it's certainly the best of times."

But shortages in labor and management and reduced competition as a result of the unprecedented amount of work already under way, with more coming, could turn this boom market into a headache.

"We see projects where we think we'll see a lot of bids, and we'll see just one bid or two bids, sometimes even no bids," Clancy added. "So, on that side, it could be considered the worst of times."

Part of the reason for the volume of construction is that New York is working to expand to accommodate a growing population base, something it hasn't done in 50 years, said Aggarwala, whose department worked with N.Y.C. Mayor Michael Bloomberg to develop his recently released PlaNYC blueprint to create a "sustainable city." City officials are predicting the population will increase by 200,000 by 2010, and will eclipse 9 million by 2030.

"Something's different right now," Aggarwala said. "Revitalizing the neighborhoods, that's over. We have to make sure we're geared up for a long-term expansion."

Nagaraja said that for the city to keep up with all of the long-range projects without experiencing a major management and labor shortage, contractors should make themselves open to the idea of joint-venturing, even if it means going outside of the region.

"Everyone wants to make all the profit, so there's some resistance to this," he said. "But we're faced with a dilemma: Do we want this work to go away or do we want to work smart? Thinking globally needs to become a reality."

Aggarwala said the construction industry needs to brace itself for what is going to be a trying - but satisfying - three decades to come.

"We're going to be in a world where it's all hands on deck," he says. "This city's like a shark. You can move forward, or you can die. You can't stagnate."

Driscoll Bridge Moves Forward

A major rehabilitation is under way on one of the oldest sections of the Driscoll Bridge, which spans the Raritan River in Middlesex County, carrying nearly 80 million vehicles using the Garden State Parkway per year.

Under a $100 million contract awarded last September by the New Jersey State Turnpike Authority to Conti Enterprises of South Plainfield, N.J., the work will take place in three phases. The first stages of the rehabilitation finished this spring, and the overall project is slated to finish in May 2009.

The project will consist of deck replacement on the part of the bridge that once carried both directions of traffic; modification and rehabilitation of the superstructure; realignment of the approaches to place all northbound traffic onto the rehabilitated bridge; construction of sign structures; installation of roadway lighting; installation of ITS facilities; and additional incidental work.

The project team will maintain seven lanes of traffic northbound across the bridge.

Carbon-Neutral Facility Coming to N.Y.C

The Solar 2 Green Energy Arts and Education Center, New York's first carbon-neutral, solar-powered building, is set to spring up on the East River at 23rd Street.

The two-story, 8,000-sq-ft complex will be a "net-zero facility, generating more clean energy than it will consume," says Christopher Collins, executive director of Solar One, the company developing the building.

The facility will be dedicated to teaching residents how to conserve energy in an urban environment, and open to the public year-round. Environmental classes for K-12 students will also be available at the center, which will eventually host a four-day energy fair called the CitySol Festival.

Solar One has tapped London-based Arup as engineer and Turner Construction of New York as construction consultant for the building, which was designed by Kiss + Cathcart Architects of Brooklyn. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration has already allocated $3 million to create Solar 2, though the project will rely on financing from private donors to raise a total project cost of $12.5 million before construction can begin. Collins says he hopes to start building in the fall of 2008, with construction taking about a year.

The first floor will house a café, bookstore and an exhibit space related to renewal energy, while a solar-powered roof will demonstrate how to best utilize renewable energy, Collins adds.

There will also be a "visible system to compare and contrast new and old energy systems," Collins says.

The center will have a model of an eco-apartment to showcase a green lifestyle, as well as a 120-person capacity, dividable classroom; a theater-style outdoor classroom; and an outdoor "green stage" theater with seating for 200 to 250 people. The building will be "powered through photovoltaic roof panels generating 85 KW of electricity from the sun, augmented by ground-source geothermal wells for heating and cooling," Collins says.

Solar 2 offers a signal that the city is open to new initiatives to replace fossil fuels, reduce energy costs, and help mitigate global warming, says Richard Cherry, founder and president Community Environmental Center, a nonprofit environmental services organization that is consulting on the project.

Solar 2 is being designed to replace its parent building, Solar 1, a 500-sq-ft temporary pavilion located in Stuyvesant Cove Park. Both buildings share the mission to "save energy, recycle rainwater, and promulgate environmental responsibility," according to Solar One's Web site.

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