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The Gateway Development Commission board on Feb. 28 awarded a key contract needed to move the broader Hudson Tunnel project forward. It is part of the $16 billion Gateway program, a group of projects that will double the capacity of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor rail segment connecting New Jersey and New York City.
The board selected from a pool of bidders MPA Delivery Partners, a joint venture formed by Chantilly, Va.-based Parsons Corp., New York City-based Arcadis and Mace North America Limited, a division of Mace Group, based to London.
The total $16 billion Hudson Tunnel project involves building a new two-track rail tunnel under the Hudson River between North Jersey and Manhattan, then rehabilitating the 110-year-old tunnel that was severely damaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The decaying tunnel is a bottleneck for New Jersey commuters and Amtrak passengers, and President Joe Biden called the Gateway Program “One of the largest and most consequential projects in the country.”
According to the GDC, the JV will provide project management support, including interface risk management, cost and schedule assurance, safety and quality management, and innovation and value engineering. It will also support field management and security, as well as quality and compliance. The works will start this month.
“The delivery partner will be the arms and legs that will allow GDC to continue to move this project forward at high speed as we prepare to begin heavy construction,” Alicia Glen, New York GDC commissioner and co-chair, said in the statement. “With more major contract awards this year, the addition of the delivery partner ensures we have the strongest and most agile team ready at the ready.”
The first phase of the work is worth up to $26.8 million, and “specific awards for additional phases will need to be approved through our board of commissioners,” said GDC spokesman Stephen Sigmund , in an email. The contract covers six years with three three-year options to extend it, and can be recalibrated if certain projects require more resources or terminated if performance is unsatisfactory, NorthJersey.com reported.
MPA Delivery Partners beat out two other shortlisted candidates: Bechtel and HNTB, as well as Atkins North America, Arup USA Inc. and The McKissack Group. Officials from the GDC, New York State, NJ Transit, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and Amtrak reviewed the proposals submitted by the three qualified teams.
In early February, the GDC awarded the project’s first heavy construction contract Hudson River Soil Stabilization at Weeks Marine in Cranford, New Jersey, paving the way for work to begin on the river this year.
