$1.5B set for key Gateway portion
Strategy could save 9 months of construction
By: colleen Wilson
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey
NEW YORK - The Gateway development Commission board unanimously awarded a $1.8 billion contract Monday [02/03/2025] for one of the most expensive and complicated aspects of the $16 billion project to build a new railroad tunnel between North Jersey and Manhattan under the Hudson River.
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The winning firm rose to the top after pitching unique strategy that could save nine months of construction, said Hamed Nejad, the GDC's acting chief technical officer.
..... "This is the most exciting and challenging contract," Nejad told the board.
..... The new tunnel is meant to provide more reliable service for NJ Transit and Amtrak riders. Once it is completed, work begin to rehabilitate the existing century-old tunnel, which was damage by Superstorm Sandy.
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The joint venture of Frontier, Kemper, Tutor and Perini won the contract. The other two short-listed bidders were a joint venture of Halmar and FCC Constriction and the joint venture Walsh-Skanska-Taylor.
..... This construction package, known as the Manhattan Tunnel Project, involves clearing a 700-foot pat for the future tunnel as it approaches the Manhattan side of the Hudson River and ultimately connecting with the tunnel shaft being built in Hudson Yards, where the tracks will connect with New York Penn Station.
..... The complicated parts are the underground knowns and unknowns in that particular area - there are sewer and utility lines, 1800-era wooden bulkhead piles supporting Manhattan, and a former landfill full of things that obscure the tunnel boring path.
..... Nejad noted hat other tunnel projects slowed down when the tunnel boring machines encounter unexpected obstructions.
..... "It's a risky job," Nejad said, because "you could be hitting something you don't even know, and that's why we're taking those measures to make sure we're not going through," what other projects experienced, issues that caused " significant delay and cost."
..... The winning firm proposed a method that would stabilize the ground vertically, not horizontally, and without having to construct two temporary shafts, which was the assumed conventional method. then a smaller version of a tunnel boring machine will dig and create a temporary backfilled pat for the larger tunnel boring machine.
..... Christopher Boylan, the director of governmental and strategic partnerships for the General Contractors Association of New York, complimented the bistate agency for its early engagement with industry players.
..... "We also commend you for the work that you're done over the last two years to partner with the construction and engineering industries through early and regular outreach that's kind of a unique aspect of GDC," Boylan said. "We don't see that with our other clients."
..... "It goes a long way toward eliminating disconnects going forward," he said. "It also allowed for creative project design and delivery."