MTA awards $628 million in contracts for tunnels, caverns project

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) announced yesterday that it awarded two contracts valued at $628 million to contractors that 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 (LIRR) concourse.

The first contract — worth $333.59 million, with options leading to a total of $550.4 million — was awarded to Tutor Perini Corp. to complete communications systems that will be used by the public and employees in the concourse, and infrastructure support systems, MTA officials said in a press release.

The communications systems include 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.

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

Frontier-Kemper also will rehabilitate the segment of the 63rd Street Tunnel under the East River that will be used by LIRR trains. In addition, the firm will complete work on the underground portions of two facilities, located at 50th Street and 55th Street, which will ventilate the tunnels and cavern that will house the new LIRR station at Grand Central. The above-ground portion of the 50th Street ventilation facility recently was completed.

"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. "When Long Island Rail Road riders come to Grand Central, the systems that will be put in place through these contracts will serve as an unseen backbone making train service possible."

The East Side Access project will bring trains from all 11 LIRR branches into the new concourse beneath Grand Central Terminal. The connection will increase LIRR’s capacity into Manhattan, MTA officials said.