The contract will be awarded to a joint venture of Halmar International and RailWorks.
The project will provide a direct Metro-North Service from the Bronx, Westchester and Connecticut to Penn Station and Manhattan's West Side.
The current project construction schedule is estimated at 63 months and US$2.87bn (£2.17bn). It is estimated the project will create or retain approximately 4,500 direct jobs and another 10,000 indirect jobs.
Jamie Torres-Springer, President of MTA Construction & Development said: “Projects like Penn Station Access are why the MTA created a new capital agency to use innovative approaches that will get projects built better, faster and cheaper. The single design-build contract makes one entity responsible for all elements of the project under our management, putting this project on the path of the MTA's LIRR Expansion Project, which has kept to budget and to schedule using a similar approach.”
Catherine Rinaldi, president of MTA Metro-North Railroad, said: “Access to Penn Station is completely transformative for Metro-North and we are excited to begin the service upon completion of the project. This will be the railroad's largest expansion in history - four new stations is no small thing. This gives Metro-North's busiest line a second route into Manhattan for the first time, redundancy that's all the more important as the railroad looks to pursue major capital renewal projects on the route to Grand Central - namely the Park Avenue Viaduct and the Park Avenue Tunnel.”
In addition to four new stations, the project will turn the existing two-track railway into largely four tracks, with over 19 miles of new and rehabilitated track work. Other aspects of the project include the rehabilitation of four bridges.
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