New York State has passed legislation to allow design-build project delivery for certain infrastructure projects. Industry groups, including the Design-Build Institute of America, praised the measure. Under the law, several state agencies—the N.Y. State Dept. of Environmental Conservation; Dept. of Transportation; Thruway Authority; Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation; and Bridge Authority—are now authorized to use design-build.
The law, which creates the New York Works Infrastructure Fund, is part of a broader economic package aimed at job creation and tax reduction for the middle class. Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) unveiled the program Dec. 6.
The law is set to sunset three years after the date of enactment. That is because the state “wants to see how this works” before making a further commitment, says Mike Elmendorf, president and CEO of the Associated General Contractors of New York State, who supports the law. “The flexibility that this is going to give a handful of state agencies to deliver projects more quickly, more efficiently and, in many cases, less expensively, is a very significant step forward,” Elmendorf says. He says that the Tappan Zee Bridge project will be done as design-build and that RFQs are already out. “They already started doing that in anticipation of this [law] happening,” he adds.