Cortlandt Street Reconstruction Delays Worry MTA Brass

Officials from New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority have discussed delays to the planned reconstruction of the Cortlandt Street station on the No. 1 subway line with its contractor, Judlau Contracting.

"I reached out to Judlau, and they have sent me a letter affirming their commitment to the MTA on all of their contracts as well as the resources to meet their schedules," MTA acting executive director Ronnie Hakim said at Thursday's monthly board meeting.

The station, in lower Manhattan near the World Trade Center site, was demolished after sustaining damage in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Service on the corridor resumed about a year later, but the station has remained vacant.

The MTA and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey had originally undertaken a cost-sharing agreement, but never finalized terms. The MTA agreed two years ago to take over the project at an initial cost of $101 million, including an additional $31.5 million to compensate Judlau for construction delays.

A separate Cortlandt Street station serving the N, R and W lines has since reopened.

The board Thursday approved a $2 million increase to its $268 million contract with Judlau to demolish toll booths at the Manhattan exit plaza at the Queens Midtown Tunnel in favor of open-road tolling, and restore the tunnel to its state of good repair condition before Hurricane Sandy struck on Oct. 29, 2012.

Judlau is a major MTA contractor, notably for bridge-and-tunnel related projects. Board members twice this week debated how effectively the MTA could monitor vendor contracts and performance.

"We can always a do better job doing that," acting MTA chairman Fernando Ferrer told reporters Thursday. "[But] we're on top of this performance issue. They do a good job on open-roads tolling and not so good a job on some other things. They have promised to pick that up and we'll see.

"Again, we have the ability to deal with contractors in a variety of ways, up to and including declining to do business with them. No need for that kind of threat right now."

Michael Horodniceanu, the MTA's capital construction president, told members of the authority's New York City transit and bus committee Tuesday that Judlau is five months late reacting to communications and mechanical changes the MTA recommended for Cortlandt Street.

The MTA is one of the largest municipal issuers with $37.1 billion of debt.

"We continue to have delays in the way they're handling it," said Horodniceanu. "Cost proposals have not been in line with the scope of work, resulting in extended reviews and delays … typically somewhere between 200% and 300% above our estimates, with some of them 5 to 10 times our estimates."

Board member Charles Moerdler cited the MTA's problems with Judlau regarding delays on the Second Avenue subway megaproject, the first phase of which opened Dec. 31.

"They were not the stellar child on that project," said Horodniceanu. "[But] they did correct themselves on Second Avenue and they did deliver, so I just want to make sure that's clear. It was hard to get delivery and the delivery did happen."

The company, Horodniceanu added, has been "more reasonable" the past two months after the MTA termed their Cortlandt performance unsatisfactory.

In 2012, Judlau and Dragados USA Inc. agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle a civil fraud lawsuit in court related to the MTA's East Side Access project to bring Long island Rail Road commuter trains into Grand Central Terminal. The suit alleged that the companies schemed to circumvent federal requirements to hire disadvantaged business enterprises.

A message seeking comment was left with Judlau's New York office.

MTA chief of operations planning Peter Cafiero said Judlau, which won a $194 million bid to rebuild the South Ferry station on the No. 1 line in lower Manhattan, is on schedule to complete the project in June.

Hurricane Sandy destroyed the station. Judlau, said Cafiero, was early in its rebuilding of the Montague Street tube connection, also destroyed by Sandy.

"With every contract that we deal with, there are usually projects that they do very, very well on, and there other projects that they don't do as well on, and a lot of its resides with the contactor but a lot of it is also with ourselves," said Cafiero.

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Transportation industry New York
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