New York MTA Awards $628M for East Side Access Tunnel Work

New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority has awarded two contracts valued at $628 million to East Side Access contractors, who will line more than 10,000 linear feet of newly excavated tunnels with permanent structural concrete walls, and install complex communications systems in Grand Central Terminal's future Long Island Rail Road concourse.

"The work to be performed through these contracts will significantly advance East Side Access, the most complex and largest transportation infrastructure project under way in North America," said Michael Horodniceanu, president of MTA Capital Construction. Tunnels that have been drilled through Manhattan bedrock will be waterproofed and lined with concrete and readied for tracks. A cavern that now is a raw concrete space will be activated with advanced communications networks.

A contract valued at $334 million, with options leading to a total of $550.4 million, has been awarded to Tutor Perini Corp. to complete communications and infrastructure support systems for the future LIRR concourse. The communications systems including telephone, two-way radio, public address, digital signage, and fire detection. The infrastructure support systems include tunnel ventilation, tunnel drainage, tunnel lighting, plumbing and fire protection.

A contract valued at $294.2 million was awarded to Frontier-Kemper Constructors Inc. to build permanent structural concrete lining, including embedded mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems, on the newly excavated tunnels north of Grand Central Terminal, running from 50th Street and Park Avenue to 63rd Street and Second Avenue.

Frontier-Kemper will also rehabilitate the segment of the 63rd Street Tunnel under the East River that LIRR trains will use, and which was completed in the early 1970s. The firm will complete work on the underground portions of two facilities, located at 50th Street and 55th Street, that will ventilate the tunnels and cavern that will house the new LIRR station at Grand Central.

The East Side Access project will bring trains from all 11 LIRR branches into a new concourse beneath Grand Central Terminal.

The MTA is one of the largest issuers in the municipal marketplace, with about $32 billion in debt. Standard & Poor's rates the MTA's primary credit, transportation revenue bonds, A-plus, while Fitch Ratings and Moody's Investors Service rate them A and A2, respectively.

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Transportation industry New York
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