A rendering of the proposed station at 106th Street and Second Avenue.
Photo by MTA
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is set to approve a $1.97 billion contract to bore tunnels and start construction on two new Harlem subway stations, a major step in extending the long-delayed Second Avenue Subway line north from the Upper East Side into East Harlem.
The MTA board is expected to vote Monday to award the contract to Connect Plus Partners, a joint venture of Halmar International and FCC Construction. The work is part of Phase 2 of the Second Avenue Subway, a $6.99 billion project slated to open in September 2032.
The contract covers converting a 2,500-foot tunnel built in the 1970s between 116th and 125th streets into a station box, boring an 8,400-foot tunnel to Malcolm X Boulevard, mining the cavern for the 125th Street Station, and excavating shafts for ancillary buildings and future entrances.
“This day is a long time coming,” said Jamie Torres-Springer, president of MTA Construction & Development, during a Friday press briefing. “Phase One opened in 2017, but the residents of East Harlem have been left without subway service, and they deserve subway service.”
Phase 2 will add three new Q line stations at 106th, 116th, and 125th streets, serving an estimated 110,000 daily riders and connecting with Metro-North at Harlem–125th Street.
According to the MTA, combined with Phase 1, which runs from 72nd to 96th streets, the Second Avenue line is expected to carry about 300,000 passengers a day.
Officials say the tunneling will be done with a 1.5 million-pound German-made variable-density tunnel boring machine that can switch between soft soil and hard rock without disassembly.
Unlike the machine used in Phase 1, it can excavate and install the pre-cast lining in a single automated process, reducing the tunnel crew size by 40% and saving an estimated $100 million in labor costs.
The MTA adopted cost-cutting measures for Phase 2, and says it will be about 10% cheaper overall than Phase 1. The savings come from reducing station sizes, reusing the existing tunnel segments from the 1970s that were slated for demolition, applying some 32 “value engineering” proposals from contractors, and using the new “cutting-edge” tunneling equipment.
Torres-Springer said those changes, combined with a streamlined design-build approach, have saved an estimated $1.3 billion.
Among the “alternative technical concepts” are the elimination of four of six previously planned cross passages due to their difficulty of construction.
Torres-Springer said that once the board approves the contract, the design
builders will first order the tunnel boring machine, which will be fabricated and delivered in the early part of 2027.
On the pending delivery of the tunnel boring machine, MTA officials said the agency is “shielded” from any risks that could arise due to turmoil in the global economy, with any variabilities falling on the contractor.
“It’s the design builders responsibility to get hold of the tunnel boring
machine and get it in the ground in early 2027 that risk is on them, and they have taken it on,” one MTA official said. ” I do know that the course of this procurement, they were able to fully negotiate that deal for the cost of it, the timing of it, the various characteristics of it, so they have a great deal of confidence.”
The project has a 20% local hiring goal and partnerships with City College of New York.
The Second Ave. Subway extension project will soon include the approval of the next contract to create an underground station box at 106th Street. According to the MTA, the contract is currently in the procurement stage.
The next contract, currently in the design phase, will involve fitting out the interiors of the new stations and systems needed to run the service.
According to Torres-Springer, another lesson learned from Phase 1 is to get utility relocation out of the way “because it always takes longer than you think.” Utilities are currently being relocated to make way for the 106th station.
“From the moment I took office, getting the Second Avenue Subway built and ensuring that an entire community is no longer trapped in a transit desert has been a top priority,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement ahead of Monday’s board meeting.”Now, with the MTA poised to award this major contract, the time for promises to East Harlem is over and the time for building is here.”
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