Courtesy of DDC
Overall, heavy construction for the program began in June at the Queens site, where a structure that will house a new parking garage and 25,000-square-foot community space is currently under construction.
By Forum Staff
The City Department of Design and Construction announced Tuesday that it has selected four separate teams of designers and builders to receive design-build contracts to prepare the sites where four new borough-based jail facilities will be constructed in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx. A fifth new contract has been awarded through the City’s regular competitive bidding process for infrastructure work at the Queens site.
The teams/firms selected to receive the five contracts are:
- Brooklyn Dismantle/Swing Space – NorthStar Contracting Group Inc. (design-build, $59.7 million)
- Queens Dismantle/Swing Space – Hunter Roberts Construction Group, LLC (design-build, $43.1 million)
- Manhattan Dismantle/Swing Space – Gramercy Group Inc. (design-build, $125.2 million)
- Bronx Site Preparation – Yonkers Contracting Company Inc. (design-build, $76.7 million)
- Queens Water Main Installation – Triumph Construction Corporation ($6.4 million)
“These expert teams will design and build jails that reflect our city’s strength and compassion, and I look forward to celebrating fast progress toward completing each Borough-Based Jail in the years to come,” said First Deputy Mayor Dean Fuleihan.
DDC officials said the agency anticipates that the four contracts for dismantling structures in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan, and for site preparation in the Bronx, will be registered by the end of 2021, with work starting in the first quarter of 2022. The contract for the Queens trunk water main installation has already been registered and work is also expected to begin in the first quarter of 2022, taking 18 months to complete.
Overall, heavy construction for the program began in June at the Queens site, where a structure that will house a new parking garage and 25,000-square-foot community space is currently under construction. The structure is being built on the west side of an existing parking lot at Union Turnpike between 126th Street and 132nd Street.
DDC is working with the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice and the NYC Department of Correction to implement the City’s plan to build four smaller, safer and fairer borough-based jail facilities and to close the jails on Rikers Island.
Design and construction firms participating in the program will have a rare opportunity to build facilities grounded in dignity and respect, offering better connections to the Court system that are emblematic of NYC’s criminal justice reform work. The facilities will be designed to accommodate the needs of families as well as for medical, mental health, education and therapeutic programming service providers. Passed by the City Council in October 2019, the City’s plan comes at a time when New York City has the lowest crime and incarceration rates of any large city in the United States.
Procurement for all Borough-Based Jails Program work takes place through a two-step process: submittal of a Statement of Qualifications in response to an RFQ, followed by submittal of a proposal by short-listed vendors in response to a Request for Proposals. SOQs are reviewed to create a shortlist of firms that will be able to respond to a future Request for Proposal for the work. DDC will also make stipends available to firms that are short-listed and participate in a Request for Proposal process but are not selected to be awarded a design-build contract.
