MTA Capital Construction Construction of a signature transit center could begin later this year for a 2009 completion.

The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Capital Construction Co. will let bids next month for the crown jewel of the $888-million Fulton Street Transit Center project. It is the fourth and final construction package of the project, which is slated for a 2009 completion.

Bids will be received Sept. 6 to build a 215,000-sq-ft steel and glass station topped by a striking oculus-shaped skylight, with an award scheduled for October, say MTA officials. The center will consolidate a dozen existing subway lines and provide a 400-ft-long, 29-ft-wide concourse linking to the new World Trade Center PATH station.

Costlier-than-expected real estate appraisals in 2005 contributed to the budget increase from $750 million (ENR 7/11/05 p. 7). Federal funds will provide $847 million, and the MTA’s 2008 budget will include the extra $41 million, says Uday Durg, MTA project manager. Value engineering shaved more than $60 million in design changes, such as relocating staff facilities and eliminating non-essential rooms, or using off-the-shelf steel members rather than “more adventurous curved steel members,” adds Craig Covil, project manager for lead consultant Arup Inc.’s New York City office.

None of this affects the primary goal—creating a light-filled space with logistically clear connections between 11 subway lines. “The biggest challenge was unifying dissimilar spaces into one common linking concourse,” says James McConnell, project manager with New York City-based HDR Daniel Frankfurt, a member of the design team led by Grimshaw Architects and Arup.

The center also will incorporate the terra cotta, sandstone and marble facade of a historically listed building that originally would have been demolished. The building includes “the only solid brass staircase in Manhattan,” Covil says.

The first $30-million package for related station improvements is done. The third is an $8-million demolition of acquired property. Skanska U.S.A. Civil Inc., Whitestone, N.Y., is well along with a $145-million design-build contract, to be completed next year, for three structural boxes that support existing and new subway facilities. Working around live trains and live utilities, crews have

driven hundreds of minipiles through existing slabs. A waterproof “bathtub” to protect the new concourse required 370 secant piles and 60 jet grout columns.