By Albert Amateau
The Department of Sanitation is putting its three-district garage proposed for Spring St. out to bid this week.
The invitation to potential contractors for the 120-foot-tall garage, to serve Sanitation Districts 1, 2 and 5, covering Lower Manhattan, Greenwich Village, and Union Square to Midtown between Lexington and Eighth Aves., appears in the Feb. 3 City Record. The deadline for responses is March 31, and the Sanitation Department expects to be able to award the bid by the end of May, said Steve Brautigam, Sanitation’s assistant commissioner for environmental affairs. Construction is expected to take a little more than three years, and the department estimates the project’s total cost at $385 million. The site is on Spring St. between Washington and West Sts.
The project was bitterly opposed by a group of Hudson Square neighborhood property owners and residents who filed a lawsuit to block it. They tried but failed to convince the city to build a smaller Spring St. facility to serve only two Sanitation districts.
On Jan. 11, State Supreme Court Justice Joan B. Lobis dismissed the lawsuit, and the plaintiffs have not decided whether they would appeal the ruling.
