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Vote on T?s Green Line extension looms
Big Dig partner is subcontractor
By Eric Moskowitz
Globe Staff / September 6, 2010
The Department of Transportation?s board is scheduled to vote tomorrow on a design contract for the Green Line extension that was postponed last month, a contract that has attracted attention because it includes Big Dig partner Parsons Brinckerhoff as a subcontractor.
Last month?s vote was delayed because the board lacked a quorum, not because of any controversy, said Joe Pesaturo, spokesman for the MBTA and the MassDOT-managed Green Line extension.
The $24.5 million contract for preliminary engineering, covering design of the route, stations, and a related maintenance facility, is not technically a new contract, but rather a ?contract amendment?? ? an extension of one that Vanasse Hangen Brustlin Inc. bid for and won in 2007 to handle the initial conceptual design for the Green Line, Pesaturo said.
That contract, and previous amendments, have been worth $11.9 million, he said.
PB Americas, a division of Parsons Brinckerhoff, is one of seven subcontractors Vanasse Hangen Brustlin intends to use on the next phase. When board member Liz Levin learned of Parsons Brinckerhoff?s inclusion, she recused herself from the meeting because of ?a past and indirect professional association?? with the firm, Pesaturo said. With fellow board member Ferdinand Alvaro absent, the board lacked the required four members for a vote, Pesaturo said.
After the meeting, word of Parsons Brinckerhoff?s inclusion prompted Governor Deval Patrick?s two opponents in the gubernatorial race to blast him for allowing the contract to proceed, despite Patrick?s stated concerns in the past about allowing the firm to do business with the state.
However, the state cannot legally prevent Parsons Brinckerhoff from participating on public contracts. The firm teamed with Bechtel to oversee design and construction of the Big Dig, a project beset by delays, engineering difficulties, and cost overruns, and marred by a 2006 ceiling collapse in an Interstate 90 connector tunnel that killed a Jamaica Plain woman.
In 2008, the attorney general?s office reached a settlement with the partnership worth more than $400 million for the state. In turn, the agreement spared the firms from criminal prosecution and did not prevent them from working on future projects.
Patrick?s administration has pledged to complete the long-promised, $954 million Green Line extension to Somerville and Medford by 2015, a commitment that brought Patrick to Somerville last Monday, where he visited a planned stop along the extension. A developer is planning a 199-unit, $50 million mixed-income housing development at that stop, off Lowell Street.
Developer KSS Realty Partners was drawn to the location by the promised Green Line and by an adjacent bike/walking trail known as the Community Path that is in the planning stage, said Michael Meehan, a Somerville spokesman.
?The site had been for the past decade a decaying industrial [complex]. Literally the only residents over there were rats,?? said Meehan. ?The Green Line extension and the Community Path extension were two key elements of getting the developer interested in that site at all.??
The Community Path would run adjacent to the Green Line, and link bikers and walkers on the suburban Minuteman Bikeway through Somerville to the cusp of downtown Boston and the 17-mile Charles River path network. The state has promised to design that path in concert with the Green Line extension, but has not put up the roughly $30 million to construct it, in the name of fiscal constraint.
As an initial boost, the city of Somerville plans to spend its own money and matching congressional earmarks to construct a small part of the path, bringing it from where it ends at Cedar Street, east of Davis Square, to Lowell Street. There, the developer has granted a public easement for the path and is putting up $550,000 to help connect it across the property to the future transit station, Meehan said.
Patrick presented a check for another $490,000 from a state transportation-oriented development grant program for that segment, which may begin construction next year.
The rest of the path ? roughly 2 miles ? lacks funding, but Somerville two weeks ago filed an application seeking up to $25.4 million from a stimulus-backed federal grant program known as TIGER II.
In a statement, Patrick called the real estate development at the former MaxPak site a clear sign ?how prioritizing projects near public transportation can address the economic vitality of communities, while creating private investments, and jobs.??
Eric Moskowitz can be reached at emoskowitz@globe.com.
Big Dig partner is subcontractor
By Eric Moskowitz
Globe Staff / September 6, 2010
The Department of Transportation?s board is scheduled to vote tomorrow on a design contract for the Green Line extension that was postponed last month, a contract that has attracted attention because it includes Big Dig partner Parsons Brinckerhoff as a subcontractor.
Last month?s vote was delayed because the board lacked a quorum, not because of any controversy, said Joe Pesaturo, spokesman for the MBTA and the MassDOT-managed Green Line extension.
The $24.5 million contract for preliminary engineering, covering design of the route, stations, and a related maintenance facility, is not technically a new contract, but rather a ?contract amendment?? ? an extension of one that Vanasse Hangen Brustlin Inc. bid for and won in 2007 to handle the initial conceptual design for the Green Line, Pesaturo said.
That contract, and previous amendments, have been worth $11.9 million, he said.
PB Americas, a division of Parsons Brinckerhoff, is one of seven subcontractors Vanasse Hangen Brustlin intends to use on the next phase. When board member Liz Levin learned of Parsons Brinckerhoff?s inclusion, she recused herself from the meeting because of ?a past and indirect professional association?? with the firm, Pesaturo said. With fellow board member Ferdinand Alvaro absent, the board lacked the required four members for a vote, Pesaturo said.
After the meeting, word of Parsons Brinckerhoff?s inclusion prompted Governor Deval Patrick?s two opponents in the gubernatorial race to blast him for allowing the contract to proceed, despite Patrick?s stated concerns in the past about allowing the firm to do business with the state.
However, the state cannot legally prevent Parsons Brinckerhoff from participating on public contracts. The firm teamed with Bechtel to oversee design and construction of the Big Dig, a project beset by delays, engineering difficulties, and cost overruns, and marred by a 2006 ceiling collapse in an Interstate 90 connector tunnel that killed a Jamaica Plain woman.
In 2008, the attorney general?s office reached a settlement with the partnership worth more than $400 million for the state. In turn, the agreement spared the firms from criminal prosecution and did not prevent them from working on future projects.
Patrick?s administration has pledged to complete the long-promised, $954 million Green Line extension to Somerville and Medford by 2015, a commitment that brought Patrick to Somerville last Monday, where he visited a planned stop along the extension. A developer is planning a 199-unit, $50 million mixed-income housing development at that stop, off Lowell Street.
Developer KSS Realty Partners was drawn to the location by the promised Green Line and by an adjacent bike/walking trail known as the Community Path that is in the planning stage, said Michael Meehan, a Somerville spokesman.
?The site had been for the past decade a decaying industrial [complex]. Literally the only residents over there were rats,?? said Meehan. ?The Green Line extension and the Community Path extension were two key elements of getting the developer interested in that site at all.??
The Community Path would run adjacent to the Green Line, and link bikers and walkers on the suburban Minuteman Bikeway through Somerville to the cusp of downtown Boston and the 17-mile Charles River path network. The state has promised to design that path in concert with the Green Line extension, but has not put up the roughly $30 million to construct it, in the name of fiscal constraint.
As an initial boost, the city of Somerville plans to spend its own money and matching congressional earmarks to construct a small part of the path, bringing it from where it ends at Cedar Street, east of Davis Square, to Lowell Street. There, the developer has granted a public easement for the path and is putting up $550,000 to help connect it across the property to the future transit station, Meehan said.
Patrick presented a check for another $490,000 from a state transportation-oriented development grant program for that segment, which may begin construction next year.
The rest of the path ? roughly 2 miles ? lacks funding, but Somerville two weeks ago filed an application seeking up to $25.4 million from a stimulus-backed federal grant program known as TIGER II.
In a statement, Patrick called the real estate development at the former MaxPak site a clear sign ?how prioritizing projects near public transportation can address the economic vitality of communities, while creating private investments, and jobs.??
Eric Moskowitz can be reached at emoskowitz@globe.com.
