Fulton Hub Costs To Cross $1B, Agency Says
January 28, 2008
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced today that cost estimates for the Fulton Street Transit Center in Lower Manhattan have grown to $1.15 billion from an original price tag of $750 million and officials say the design will be reconsidered to save costs by excluding the planned above ground retail complex.
“I am sad to say that we cannot build the transit center as currently envisioned in this market,” the executive director of the MTA, Elliot Sander, said.
The more than 200,000 commuters who use the 12 subway lines that would be linked by the new hub will now have to wait at least until October 2010, according to the new estimates.
The downsizing today is one of many that have plagued the MTA since the authority first began work on the transit center in 2005. Originally slated to open by the end of 2007, the timeline was pushed back twice and its budget increased $133 million before the MTA’s announcement today.
With current estimates, a transit center with underground connections and above ground retail space will run over $1.15 billion. The new $903 million price tag announced this morning by the MTA will not cover any above-ground construction. Mr. Sander cited the rising price of construction services as a major factor in the cost overruns. A request this month for contracting bids on an estimated $408 million phase of construction yielded only one proposal for $870 million, more than double what the MTA had projected.
Any spending above the $847 million in federal funds allocated to the project must be secured by the MTA.
“It’s important that the MTA get its arms around this beast, because the project is so vital,” the chairman of the City Council’s Transportation Committee, John Liu, said. “The MTA should not blow this opportunity.”
“There is no question that construction costs are way up,” Mr. Liu said. “The question is why the whole project itself is taking so long.”
Source: NY Sun
More from the MTA and the Fulton Street Transit Center here
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