BY DUSICA SUE MALESEVIC | Lower Manhattan residents will be hit with yet another street construction project, this time on Worth St. from Hudson St. to Park Row.
The project will cost $90 million, is slated to begin this fall and will take five years to complete, but other specifics are not yet available.
Norberto Acevedo, deputy director, office of community outreach for the Department of Design and Construction, stressed the preliminary nature of his presentation to the Tribeca Committee at their Thurs., Feb. 11 meeting. The contract for the project has not even gone out to bid, he said.
The focus will be underground infrastructure, such as water mains and sewers, that are extremely old, he said. Work will also be done on ancillary streets at the east end of the project — Mulberry and Mosco, which is a small alley.
While the committee was glad that the D.D.C. came to them early in the process, the hours of construction was a source of contention. Construction can take place almost 24 hours Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. and 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. and on the weekends, Saturday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Committee member Bruce Ehrmann, who has lived on Worth St. for 27 years, said that he has suffered through Hudson St. reconstruction “and many of us here suffered through Chambers St., which is not done after all these years. Some of us who are younger adults have never lived here without construction on Houston St. And we’re all very concerned.”
Ehrmann said that Chambers St. was to be finished by last month, but has since heard that it be another five months.
“I don’t think any of us plans or intends to go through the kinds of reconstruction scenarios that have been going on with Chambers and Hudson,” he said.
Trying to get in front of the construction, instead of behind it, Ehrmann said that a small citizen advisory committee will be formed.
He also asked some questions for C.B. 1 Chairperson Catherine McVay Hughes, who could not attend the meeting.
“We lost the L.M.C.C.C., now it’s the Lower Manhattan D.O.T.,” said Ehrmann. “It’s [Hughes’] understanding that will be folded into another division come July or August.”
Ehrmann was referring to the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center, which closed in early 2014, but had been coordinating the many construction projects that were happening south of Canal St. The board and residents were concerned when it was shut down. Its duties were transferred to the office of Luis Sanchez, the Department of Transportation’s Lower Manhattan Borough commissioner.
Ehrmann wanted to know whether it was true that the Lower Manhattan would be closed and, if so, who will be communicating with the board.
“Right now, our current funding extends to the end of September,” said Sanchez. “We are going back to state D.O.T. for initial funding” but don’t know when it be approved until later this year.
“Worse case scenario is some of the staff who will handle Lower Manhattan would just get absorbed into the Manhattan borough,” he said. “Obviously, there will still be staff involved down here in terms of projects so nothing really would change, it’s just that different units now will be more involved rather than anything centrally located in my office.”
The D.O.T. set the hours of construction and when many members expressed concern and suggested that they be truncated and no weekends, Sanchez said that would also affect cost and the duration of the project.
“Let’s say we made it a straight 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. hours,” he explained. “The project gets elongated in terms of years. The more restrictive [the hours are], that $90 million also goes up in price to $100 million. That means $10 million comes from some other part of the city budget.”
Sanchez said it was a balancing act trying to get the infrastructure done and done cost effectively while understanding that there will be community impacts.
Parking, traffic, loading and unloading will be affected and bus stops may need to be closed or relocated. Water service will be shut off for up to eight hours, said Acevedo.
“Trash. That’s a big issue anywhere is the city and especially Lower Manhattan,” said Acevedo. “We’ve been on Chambers St. for quite some time. It’s always an ongoing process for the coordination of trash pick up.”
The community construction liaison, he said, will work with the community — giving construction information in advance and fielding complaints.
Jeff Ehrlich, committee member, said that the liaison for Chambers St. project was helpful with issues such trash, but that later on, it become clear she had no power.
“I meant to bring a long list of emails — that nobody would want to see — of these sort of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ stuff back and forth,” he said.
“One of the problems is the communication,” he continued. “For instance, I went to the D.D.C. site today to check on what’s the new deadline for Chamber’s St. It says, I believe, either June or July of 2013.”
Ehrlich said that he had already told the liaison this while Acevedo blamed it on the web developer.
Scott Ramsey and his partner Michael Barrow own Xeno Lights at 1 Worth St. since 1993 and asked if they will still be able to use the curb cut for moving heavy equipment in and out during construction.
But since it is not known what part of the street the construction will begin on, the D.D.C. couldn’t answer the question.
Ramsey told the Downtown Express after, “If we can’t get trucks in there, we’ll be out of business.”
