At the site of Columbia’s Manhattanville expansion, five years of work are beginning to show signs of definite progress, with the expansion of construction to surrounding blocks.
With the next phase of construction approaching, more jobs will open up, and the University is looking to fill many of them with minority-, women-, and locally owned firms, a promise it made in the Community Benefits Agreement.
On Tuesday, officials from Columbia Facilities and the Manhattanville project’s contractors, Lend Lease and McKissack & McKissack, held an information session for minority-, women-, and locally owned firms looking to bid on construction contracts for the new campus.
Although bids will begin soon for work in the interior of the buildings—including painting, elevator installation, and plumbing—Marcelo Velez, associate vice president for Manhattanville construction, said that interior construction would not actually begin for two to three years.
More than 200 people attended the information session, cramming into the 125th Street office over which Manhattanville’s cranes loom.
The University has often had a strained relationship with its neighbors in working on the campus expansion, especially when it comes to fulfilling its employment promises. But small business owners said they had a lot more to be happy about on Tuesday.
Thirty-five percent of Manhattanville construction contracts are to be awarded to MWL firms. Of the $17.2 million that has been paid to them over the course of construction, local firms have received 70 percent, an announcement that was met with applause by the meeting’s audience.
Maria Lores Brown, a Colombian immigrant and owner of a small construction firm in Queens, said that the scope of the project stands out in her 24 years of construction experience, and called the work available for minority firms “tremendous.”
“It’s humongous, it’s excellent. How great for education in New York. We need that very much. What more can you ask for?”
Derrick McKenna, a participant in the University’s small-business mentorship program, said that he hopes the project will pave the way for more firms like his.
“This doesn’t happen. More owners are following the steps of what this is doing. I think everyone should follow this lead.”
Columbia officials emphasized that efforts to provide contracts to MWL firms would be ongoing over the decades-long development in Manhattanville, although the first buildings are scheduled to open in 2016.
“It’s not a one-shot opportunity. Their trade may not come up, but this is going to be happening over many years,” Philip Pitruzzello, vice president of Manhattanville construction, said.
The slurry wall, which will support the foundations of the Jerome L. Greene Science Center for Mind, Brain, and Behavior and the Lenfest Center for the Arts, will be finished within the next two months, according to updates from the University.
Construction of the wall began in March 2011. The slurry wall, a crucial step in the laying of building foundations, is composed of reinforced concrete-filled steel cages around the perimeter of the site.
Velez said that further slurry wall construction will move to the block between 130th Street and 131st Street.
In addition to the progress on the Greene and Lenfest centers, five building demolitions slated to take place this spring will clear room for an academic research center devoted to the applied sciences and two buildings for the Columbia Business School.
According to Velez, early construction of the central energy plant, which will provide power to the entire campus, will also begin in the spring.
Associate Vice President of Construction Business Services and Communications La-Verna Fountain said she was feeling “philosophical” about the progress of the Manhattanville campus. She said that she was especially hopeful that Harlemites would feel like a part of the future campus.
“People who live in this area, they will say, ‘Yeah, I’m a part of that.’ That’s a big deal, that can create a trajectory change.”
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