U.N. Moves Ahead on Building Refurbishment
By Benny Avni
July 27, 2007
The New York Sun
Original Source: http://www.nysun.com/article/59265
UNITED NATIONS — A Swedish-owned construction firm that has been involved in large projects in the city, Skanska USA Building Inc., has been chosen by the United Nations to conduct the preconstruction phase of a $1.9 billion project to refurbish the landmark U.N. building, several sources told The New York Sun yesterday.
Undersecretary-General for Management Alicia Bárcena Ibarra is expected to announce the details of the deal struck with Skanska at a U.N. press conference Friday. The company would be in a favorable position to conduct the construction, a project potentially worth at least $1 billion. For now, however, Skanska has been hired to do only the preparation phase of the project, an ambitious blueprint known as the Capital Master Plan, scheduled to be launched early next year.
Under the contract, expected to be signed on Friday, the company will be paid a monthly fee in the lower six-digit scale, a U.N. source who spoke on condition of anonymity said. After that, if we agree on the pricing, the source said, Skanska would be the world body's first choice to win the contract for construction.
Skanska, the fourth-largest construction company in the world, has been responsible for such large-scale projects in the city as the reconstruction of City Hall Park, a nationally listed landmark; the construction of NASDAQ MarketSite at 4 Times Square; the four-phase redevelopment and improvement of Rockefeller Center; the Alfred Lerner Hall student center at Columbia University, and several subway projects.
A spokesman Skanska did not return a phone call seeking comment yesterday.
The U.N. Capital Master Plan has suffered several setbacks in recent years and was criticized earlier this month in a U.N. General Assembly audit for delays that caused its budget to balloon by at least $148 million before ground was broken. The process of choosing a construction company to conduct the preparatory phase of the project was one reason for the delays, a source familiar with the CMP who requested anonymity said.
As first envisioned, the U.N. plan involved erecting a building on the site of Robert Moses Park in Midtown. U.N. staff members were to move there while the landmark U.N. building was being refurbished. Once the renovation was completed and staffers returned to the U.N. building, the temporary tower was to be occupied by U.N. agencies now scattered around the city, mostly across the street from the main campus, at the U.N. Plaza Hotel.
The site of the U.N. Plaza Hotel is coveted by many of the city's developers, as it could fetch much higher prices than it does now under a rental agreement the city struck with the United Nations, which is not expected to expire until well into the 2020s.
Lawmakers in Albany, who have jurisdiction over the public park, stopped the original plan in its early stages, with some saying New York State should not help an organization hostile to America and Israel.
U.N. planners then went back to the drawing board and eventually devised a new plan that involved building a temporary structure on the U.N. campus, in an area known as the North Lawn, to house conferences and large gatherings. The new plan also involves renting office space in Midtown for Secretariat staffers.
Rather than renovating the U.N. building — which has not been refurbished since it was constructed in 1952 — all at once, the current plan is to work on 10 floors at a time.
This entails moving staffers on the floors that are being renovated to the rented space while other staffers remain in the building at each phase.
In addition to lawmakers in Albany, the world body's cumbersome legislative process has stymied the CMP, with General Assembly representatives injecting world politics into the plan's approval process, delaying it significantly. Citing his inability to deal with the U.N. bureaucracy, among other reasons, the plan's director, Fritz Reuter, quit his post in September 2005.
In her press conference on Friday, Ms. Barcena is expected to be accompanied by the new executive director of the CMP, Michael Adlerstein, whom Secretary-General Ban appointed earlier this month to lead the project. A former vice president and architect of the New York Botanical Garden, Mr. Adlerstein managed the restoration of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty and served as a State Department consultant on the preservation of the Taj Mahal.