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NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

FEiRIBI MANAGEMENT

Ground Zero Rush Response Followed 1 I

By Site’s Painstaking Cost Recovery

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I ’ * * __ IRM-IICII Equipment-intensive World Trade Center recovery was costly and not all reimbursement rules are settled. H ast Sept. 11, construction industry now enmeshed in reconstructing the changed. The city has set a deadline of I companies rushed equipment, work- project’s complex paper trail and in seek- Sept. 15 for receiving audited invoices ■^ers and management to the stricken ing fitial reimbursement from the Feder- from the site’s construction managers—a ■■World Trade Center complex with al Emergency Management Agency. joint venture of Bovis Lend Lease, AMEC barely a thought to permits, schedules. By year's end, New York City officials and Tully Construction Co. Inc.—for the risk or compensation. Their resources hope that the massive reconciliation of project’s DDC-managed first phase that were desperately needed and they re- the estimated $500-million Ground Zero ended in early January. An Oct. 15 dead- sponded without hesitation. A year later, cleanup job will be complete. The city has line is set for the post-January phase when the impact of that rapid response is sink- already paid 8.5% of all unreconciled project management shifted to the joint ing in, as firms and government officials invoices billed and i.s holding the rest, says venture. endure the painstaking—and to some, William Cote, a consultant who has man- DDC and its specially hired auditor, painfully slow—process of cost recovery, aged World Trade Center administration KPMG, will then reconcile paperwork But the Ground Zero ordeal has also pro- for DDC since last September. “Everyone and turn it over to FEMA by year’s end. vided valuable lessons for future “first re- will be made whole,” he insists. “But we FEMA then will review, reimburse the city g sponders” and is proving a marketing are caretakers of public monies.” for payments and close out lite project, I boon its well. " 1 he process lias been erratic. “Some officials say. “It’.s an aggressive goal con- I This summer, New York City' officials firms have been paid 100% and odiers sidering how much labor, equipment and i turned over control of the former World less than 50%.” says one contractor, material was expended down there,” says 5 Trade Center site to the Port Authority of “We're finished since April and still wait- Peter Tully, Tully Construction president. 2 New York and New (crsey. Witli its origi- ing for 30% of funds,” Others worry that Reconciling costs has unleashed a vir- o nal debris removal mission done, the originally agreed-upon or anticipated cost trial army of number-crunchers into the I city’,s Dept, of Design and Construction i.s recoveries and definition,s are being offices of Ground Zero cleanup partici-

12 ENR/September 9, 2002

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