Dear Governor Hochul, Majority Leader of the State Senate Stewart-Cousins, and Speaker of the Assembly Heastie,
For over a century, Regional Plan Association (RPA) has sought to find opportunities to deliver quality public works and critical infrastructure that serve the City of New York. Our research, planning and advocacy is supported by our large network of board and committee members, along with other public, private and civic-sector partners across the New York City metropolitan region. Our network works on city-building projects ranging from renovations of libraries and cultural institutions to new recreation and community centers, and infrastructure like our public parks and plazas, sewers, and stormwater management and resiliency work, among others. To deliver the services city residents need more quickly and efficiently, we must have a set of flexible processes and tools that can only come with decisive action from New York State.
New York City’s Capital Process Reform Task Force brought together a set of experienced subject matter experts: leaders from labor, the M/WBE community, and the design and construction industry, who recommended a set of improvements to the way the city builds public buildings and infrastructure. As a result of this ongoing effort, the city has implemented dozens of recommendations internally. There was also success with meaningful reforms at the state level, and we thank you for your leadership and support! But there are more changes needed to further streamline capital delivery.
As we approach the 2024 legislative session and budget process, we urge you to expand the procurement tools available to the City with authorization of progressive design build and construction management build. It is critical that the City have tools suitable for the range of project needs while ensuring quality delivery, providing accountability and transparency at all stages, and embedding robust workforce engagement and community participation in the process.
Earlier this year, we released a report - Building Better Streets: Improving Capital Street Infrastructure Delivery for a Re-envisioned Right-of-Way. There, we detailed the many challenges to construction projects in NYC, which expand timelines and drive up costs. As you know, delays increase costs, and we found that, as of September 2022, the projected completion date for large right-of-way projects increased by 60% and their projected budgets increased by 54% from their earliest reported budget.
The authorization to use a Design-Build process has had some success in addressing these issues. The NYC Department of Design and Construction has estimated it will save hundreds of millions of dollars and reduce project duration by an average of two years.
However, state law requires the design-bid-build process to award the job to the lowest responsible bidder, with limited exceptions. This requires the city to conduct two separate procurements: first for design, and then for construction. This cuts builders out of the early part of the process and creates an additional step that often results in change orders that add time and costs to projects. The low bid requirement creates contentious relationships from the outset between the city and bidders and between designer and builder. While we understand that this will remain the primary procurement vehicle for many city projects, we urge you to consider additional ideas to allow for the selection of the best and most appropriate tool for more complex jobs.
Expanded Procurement Tools: We support the city’s Capital Process Reform Task Force recommendation that the city’s design build authority be expanded to allow for the use of progressive design build and construction manager-build. Each of these tools allow for quality-based selection. This occurs early in project development, integrating the builder into the site investigations and design processes much sooner than in design-bid-build. The legislation maintains the public sector and private sector labor protections currently in the Public Works Investment Act (anti-displacement of public employees and a requirement to use Project Labor Agreements).
1. Progressive Design-build: The current two-step design build is well-suited for new construction and other projects with relatively defined project requirements and site conditions, but not for complex infrastructure when the subsurface conditions are unknown - a situation many of our most important street infrastructure projects have to deal with for example. Authorization of progressive design-build, a one-step procurement process that will allow the City to quickly select a team based on qualifications and collaborate throughout the essential early phases of design, expanding the range of projects that can be delivered using design build. This procurement method is used by several states, including California, Texas, and Virginia, other New York State authorities, and the private sector regularly. NYCHA will also begin to use progressive design-build under state legislation enacted in 2022 to establish a NYCHA Trust.
2. CM-Build (CM-GC): CM-Build allows the city to engage a construction manager early in the process, using quality-based selection, to collaborate with the designer as part of an integrated project delivery team much sooner than in design-bid-build. This procurement method is used by the federal government, the private sector, and nonprofits regularly, including New York City cultural institutions and the NYPL, QPL, BPL. The city has successfully used CM-Build with emergency authority, such as during the COVID emergency when DDC built testing sites in an average of seven days and built three permanent healthcare facilities in an average of 192 days.
These proposals will result in higher-quality, more efficient public projects, and will build wealth and opportunity in diverse communities. New York should be a leader in capital project delivery, and these reforms will help modernize our processes. We urge you to include these important proposals in the 2024 enacted budget.
