The dome has been saved! Long live the dome!

Rejoice, all ye Lower Manhattanites! The Dome of Fulton Street has been saved by stimulus cash heading the MTA’s way straight from Congress.

Finally, after an eternity of delays, hundreds of millions in cost overruns and 15 months of “we’ll decide next month,” the MTA can finally see a very faint glimmer of light at the end of the Fulton St. tunnel. To think, just three days ago, I was bemoaning the fact that this project will be well over half a decade late if it ever gets completed. It’s still going to wrap up late, but at least, there’s money for it again.

Anyway, joyous sarcasm aside, this is good news for the MTA. According to the agency’s CEO and Executive Director Elliot Sander, New York’s transit authority stands to gain between $1.5-$2 billion from the stimulus, and $500 million of that will head to Fulton St. Nearly William Neuman has the story:

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority expects to spend $497 million in federal economic stimulus money to complete the stalled and over-budget Fulton Street Transit Center in Lower Manhattan, the agency’s executive director said on Thursday. The money would bring the project’s cost to as much as $1.4 billion, nearly double what was estimated when it was conceived in the wake of the terror attack of Sept. 11, 2001.

The additional financing would allow the authority to move ahead with plans to erect an architecturally dramatic glass building atop the transit hub, said Elliot G. Sander, the authority’s executive director. However, it was not clear if the final design would include the project’s signature feature, a conelike skylight, known as an oculus, that would channel daylight into the lower areas of the station. Mr. Sander said the oculus could add about $40 million to the cost.

“The pavilion has to be many things to many people,” Mr. Sander said, referring to the glass structure. “It has to be a building of vibrant design with as much new retail activity as possible.” He called it “a highly visible portal to a modern transportation complex.”

Originally, this project was slated for a completion date around now and a budget of $750 million. It will far exceed those expectations and not in a good way.

Meanwhile, we have to consider a few things — political and planning — to this announcement. First, Sander issued it while testifying before Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. The Man who Killed Congestion Pricing again holds the keys to the MTA’s financial future. If he can shepherd a strong bailout plan through the Assembly, there’s hope yet. In return, Silver, long an ardent supporter of the Transit Hub at Fulton St., will finally get that hub. It’s a political tit for tat.

But on the other hand, I’m a little skeptical of this is a good use of stimulus money. While this money cannot go to operation budgets, couldn’t the MTA use $2 billion for the Second Ave. Subway? It is, after all, arguably a more important piece of the city’s future than a ritzy hub on Fulton St. Sure, they had to build something. Sure, they had to placate Silver. But that’s one expensive political bribe at the cost of better projects.

Either way, though, I can’t complain too much. This is an infusion of some much-needed cash to get a long-delayed project off the ground, and that’s good transit news.

In an alternate universe, this transit complex exists already.

As MTA projects go, the Fulton St. dome ranks high on the futility scale. Originally set to open in 2007, the project is years behind schedule and millions of dollars over budget. Most notable has been the utter lack of movement on the design for the hub entrance.

It’s been almost a year to the day since the MTA announced plans to scrap the dome at the Fulton St. Transit Center. Since then, a solid blue wall has ringed the future construction site as the economy has tanked and the MTA has delayed any announcement on the future of the project. Today, we hear news.

According to a report by NY1 transit reporter Bobby Cuza, the Fulton St. hub will resemble the originally proposed complex only with sky lights replacing the troubled dome. He reports:

When it’s complete, the Fulton Street Transit Center in lower Manhattan may look something like it’s original plans after all. After a number of fits and starts, MTA officials say they are pushing forward with a design very much like the original. “The envelope of the building will look exactly the same way as it was seen on the various renderings that were presented before,” said Michael Horodniceanu, President, MTA Capital Construction Co.

But not everything will be the same. While the glass façade will be retained, a planned glass dome may well be eliminated, replaced with a skylight allowing the sun to filter inside. And it’s there on the inside, where the biggest design changes will take place, as the MTA reconfigures the space to add more shops and restaurants.

“The design that we are looking at is to increase the amount of retail space, leasable retail space, on both the street level as well as the first floor above that,” Horodniceanu.

Now, that’s all well and good, but as Cuza points out, the reality on the ground differs from that painted by Horodniceanu. In terms of timing, Cuza notes that the building foundation won’t be completed for another 18 months, and the MTA has no timetable for construction of the hub. This project will, in all likelihood, end up a good seven or eight years behind schedule.

Money is also an issue as well. In July, the Feds under the Bush Administration denied federal funds for the $350 million cost overruns. Somehow, the MTA will have to find well over a quarter billion dollars in its tight capital budget for this project. Furthermore, while the city would have originally covered sidewalk repair as part of their effort to rehabilitate Fulton St., due to the massive delays, the MTA will now be shouldering those burdens as well. Yikes.

Because there is no alternative other than a walled-in and idle construction site, the city needs this Fulton St. hub. It’s part of the 9/11 recovery efforts, and it’s part of a Lower Manhattan revitalization project. When it will arrive though is anyone’s guess.

During the press gaggle prior to the tour of the new South Ferry station, the transit reporters gathered around Michael Horodniceanu, the president of MTA Capital Construction, to pepper him with questions. Talk, of course, turned to the ever-delayed Fulton St. transit hub.

When we lasted checked in with the Fulton St. hub, it was October, and the MTA had no plans for the hub. It was stuck in MTA Purgatory. Two weeks ago, Horodniceanu sort of ducked the questions surrounding the above-ground parts of this structure. “We have not yet made a decision on it,” he said. He did claim that the final structure would be “similar to what we’ve seen.” What we’ve seen is an oculus erased from the plans nearly a year ago.

At the MTA Board meeting this past week, the agency’s CEO and Executive Director Lee Sander had an update on the Fulton St. Hub, and Julie Shapiro and Josh Rogers of the Downtown Express reported on the update. While work continues apace below ground, things are moving slowly above ground. Perhaps passengers will just exit via a ladder leading down into the transit complex.

Anyway, the two downtown reporters write:

Nearly one year after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced it had run out of money to build the aboveground portion of the Fulton Transit Center, the agency still has made no decisions about the future.

“We have a couple of different options for what’s above ground,” Lee Sander, M.T.A. executive director, said this week. “The issue is really figuring out how we pay for it.”

He did not disclose any information on the alternatives under consideration. He said he was “highly confident” something will be built above street level, but he has made similar comments throughout the year and the M.T.A. had said they would have a new plan for the site by last February…

Sander would only say Thursday that the M.T.A. is not interested in topping the station with a commercial structure to raise revenue. “At this point that’s not in our plans, and given the fact that we’re in the environmental planning process, I think I will leave my comments there,” he said.

So the MTA, as Shapiro and Rogers noted, “displaced 140 businesses in 2006 to make way for a domed Fulton station that was to become a new Downtown landmark,” and since then, nothing has happened. The intersection of Fulton St. and Broadway remains an empty lot surrounding by a blue construction fence, and the MTA heads can tell us only what is not going to fill that spot.

At some point, something will rise above the Fulton St. transit hub, and in the end, as long as the below-ground connections work out, it doesn’t really matter what happens above ground. But for now, we know we’ll be waiting a long time for the MTA to build something. They have to figure out what will go in the empty spot, conduct the appropriate environmental reviews, find the money for construction and then build it. Yikes. We might be in a for a few years of nothing at Fulton St.

In some alternate universe New York City, this transit hub already exists.

Thirty days ago Back in May, the MTA had just told Community Board 1 that answers on the fate of the Fulton St. Transit Hub would be forthcoming in 30 days. Over 150 days later, we still haven’t heard a peep out of the transit agency concerning this oft-delayed transit hub.

At the end of last week, the news got worse. The MTA still has no idea what’s happening downtown. With the economy in free fall and money tight all around, Lower Manhattan may just be stuck with a giant blue fence at the corner of Fulton St. and Broadway for a long time.

Downtown Express’ Julie Shapiro has more for us:

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority still does not know when the Fulton St. Transit Center will be complete or what the completed structure will look like, but Bill Wheeler, the agency’s planning director, promised City Councilmember Alan Gerson answers soon…

One redesign possibility for the station is a smaller above-ground structure with a flat skylight as opposed to the domed oculus featured in the original design.

The M.T.A. could see some automatic cost savings if the economy continues its downward spiral, since the overheated construction market may cool and the price of materials could drop, Wheeler said.

Work on the belowground portion of the station is moving forward, and Wheeler expects the construction on Dey St. to be complete in the next month. Reopening the Cortlandt St. R/W station, though, will take at least several more months, he said.

Well, at least they’re putting a silver lining on the dark rainclouds of our terrible economy. Too bad the MTA won’t have the money to pay the decreased construction costs.

Meanwhile, there’s a lot going on in this short article. We know that the MTA still has no idea what to do with the transit hub’s above-ground structure, and while they plan to award contracts for the rest of the work, that hub will remain unfinished for at least the next three or four years.

We also see that the Cortlandt St. station, once due to reopen over a year ago, will be closed well into 2009. Much like the plans for the World Trade Center site itself, this transit hub, once a vital part to the redevelopment of Lower Manhattah, has just been one giant piece of bad news, and this latest development is no exception. It will be a great day when that Hub is finally built, and the city can put this ugly episode in its past.

When last we checked in with the Fulton St. Transit Center debacle, the MTA had, once again, promised a new design for the long-gone dome in 30 days. That was 62 days ago.

While even the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation’s website on the Fulton Hub simply states a “Spring 2008″ date for arrival of a new design, I’m just going to assume that we should wait another 30 days. Meanwhile, though, the other troubled aspect of this plan — the shaky financial picture — is in the news, but the word is not good. The Feds, as the Daily News’ Pete Donohue notes, will not toss in anymore money for the project:

The Federal Transit Administration won’t bail out the MTA’s troubled Fulton St. subway hub with an infusion of more money, a top Bush administration official said.

“Absolutely not. That’s capped out,” federal transit Administrator James Simpson said Tuesday when asked if the FTA would increase its commitment for the Fulton Transit Center.

An MTA-FTA funding agreement commits the feds to $819 million. Another $40 million is set aside in reserve funds. Plans call for overhauling the existing Fulton/Broadway/Nassau St. subway complex and creating a grand, domed entrance building with retail space.

The MTA says they’re $1 billion over budget for this project, and they’ve yet to release finalized designs for the above-ground portion of the transit hub. The work continues underground; just try navigating through the East Side IRT Fulton St. stop these days. But this project has a long way to go.

That dome is actually pretty ugly, no? (Source: MTA Capital Construction)

The Fulton St. Transit Hub sure has a long and tortured history. The MTA is halfway through building…something…at Fulton St. and they’ve nearly completely run out of money for the project based on their budget projections.

As I’ve detailed — sometimes painstakingly — the fun started in January when the MTA announced that the transit hub would be scaled back because of skyrocketed costs. Fulton St. residents objected and the MTA promised something in March and then, um, something in April. The only problem was that they didn’t say what they were promising, only that something would come, and they would tell us real soon.

Today, Julie Shapiro of Downtown Express picked up on the growing absurdity of this process and the MTA’s promises. Her article is a hilarious microcosm of bureaucratic ineptitude:

For the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, answers on the Fulton St. Transit Center continue to be 30 days away.

That’s how many days the agency said it needed back in January, after announcing that it ran out of money to build the Fulton St. Transit Center. Within 30 days, the M.T.A. promised, a revised plan would be on the table.

But at a City Council hearing in April, the M.T.A. again deferred all questions about what would be built over the hole in the ground at Broadway and Fulton Sts., where the M.T.A. demolished a row of buildings to make way for the glass-domed hub. City Councilmember John Liu demanded answers, and the M.T.A. repeated assurances that answers were coming — in 30 days.

Then, at the Community Board 1 World Trade Center Redevelopment Committee Monday night, the M.T.A. gave another update on the project. In response to specific questions about what the M.T.A. is planning to build, Uday Durg, the project manager, said he didn’t know yet, but he’d have answers in three to four weeks.

And that, folks, is why few big projects are completed in New York City anymore.

Meanwhile, check back sometime soon for the next round of updates on the Fulton St. Transit Hub. I’m sure you’ll be hearing from me on this again in, oh, 30 days.

It’s the Return of the Fulton St. Transit Hub! Nearly a month to the day since the MTA promised to build something at Fulton St., we have another round of Fulton St. Transit Hub news. How fun.

Toward the end of last week, while we were mourning the death of congestion pricing, word leaked out that the Empire State Development Corporation had proposed combining two long-delayed Lower Manhattan projects — the Fulton St. Hub and the performing arts center slated for the World Trade Center site — into one mega-project in an effort to get the ball rolling. Representatives from both the Joyce Theater, the site’s future tenants, and the MTA expressed lukewarm supprt, at best, for this proposal.

“We have to look at any possibility, but we are still committed to being part of redevelopment at the World Trade Center site,” she said to The Times. “The reason we were selected in the first place still stands: to be part of a performing arts center that was going to activate and animate the area.”

The Alliance for Downtown Manhattan was less diplomatic:

Elizabeth H. Berger, president of the Alliance for Downtown New York, a business group, said she was dismayed by Mr. Schick’s proposal. “We want what was promised — which was an architecturally distinctive, above-ground transit hub with retail — and we want it built now,” she said. “To change the design and the purpose of the building will cause substantial delays.”

Ms. Berger said the station’s function as a “commercial crossroads” would make the site problematic for a performing arts center…“You have 250,000 people coming in and out of that station every day, and it will be 300,000 after the connectors are built,” she said. Ms. Berger added that it would be difficult for trucks carrying scenery or remote broadcasting equipment to navigate the surrounding side streets, which are narrow.

The MTA’s architects at Grimshaw weren’t too pleased with the proposal either. “Transportation infrastructure makes lots of noise and vibration,” Andrew Whalley, director of the firm in New York, said. “A performing arts center requires a certain amount of acoustical isolation. They’re not natural bedfellows.”

Meanwhile, as the arts and subway debate goes on — there’s a 30-day study in the works — the MTA says that they’re making progress even as the estimated completion date is now 12 to 18 months later than originally scheduled. They also think that they’ll be able to build the whole hub as planned but that it will cost more. And I know a great deal on a bridge available for sale.

After last week’s discussions about circumferential subway lines of the future, let’s step back and look at something on the MTA’s table that the agency can’t get off the ground: the ever-popular and ever-delayed Fulton St. Transit Hub.

When last we checked in with the Hub in January, the MTA had just scrapped plans for the Hub’s dome and displaced business owners and downtown residents were not too pleased to hear about the project’s uncertain future. Following the apparent end of the MTA’s grand plans for an ornate subway hub-cum-shopping center, downtown denizens were concerned that the MTA would build only an entry plaza and leave the land relatively undeveloped.

Well, late last week, the MTA officially announced that something will arise above the Fulton St. station. The agency doesn’t yet know however what form this building will take. Julie Shapiro, a reporter for the Downtown Express, has more on this ill-fated project’s latest developments:

“It’ll be something more than a plaza, but less than the oculus,” M.T.A. spokesperson Aaron Donovan said, referring to the dome. Donovan also said the building would contain retail, though he did not know what type or how much…

The M.T.A.’s capital plan, released last week, suggests allocating an additional $295 million for the Fulton St. hub, bringing the total for the project to $1.198 billion, more than $400 million over the original estimate for the center before it was scaled back. So far, the M.T.A. has awarded Fulton contracts worth close to $1 billion, Donovan said…

The project’s completion date, last scheduled for June 2009, is listed as “To Be Decided” in the capital plan. Donovan said he would have more information in 30 to 45 days. The below-ground work, to ease connections between 12 subway lines, is moving forward as planned and was never in jeopardy.

So basically, the MTA is seemingly back at Square One with the Fulton St. hub. They will build something, but they don’t know when it will open, what it will look like or who or what may be the commercial tenants. I’m still angling for a ladder leading into a hole in the ground. Perhaps a hatch-like structure a la Lost would be appropriate.

Meanwhile, Shapiro’s article is a treasure trove of angry residents, business owners and Community Board members all opining about the MTA’s inability to deliver the proposed and promised Fulton St. Hub. “We’re very frustrated with this switch-and-bait plan,” Catherine McVay Hughes, a CB1 member, said. “What was promised appears like it’s not going to be delivered.”

Downtown residents are also wary of the MTA’s plan to attract retail to the Hub. Citing the high-end mall at Columbus Circle, Lower Manhattan residents would rather see something that fits the needs of those who live and work in the area. “It’s going to have nothing to do with most of the people who live Downtown and work Downtown,” Arthur Castle, a one-time downtown worker, said. “They should put up something there that will serve a good public purpose, something for the community. I don’t think it should be a big decoration that’s a magnet for high-end retail stores.”

As we sit around here and debate the possibilities of a Brooklyn-Queens-Bronx subway line, a quick glance at Lower Manhattan could dash our hopes. If the MTA can’t get a building off the ground in a real estate space they own, what hopes do we have for a three-borough subway line that would have a greater impact on the city than some ornate transit hub anyway?

Yup. There’s that dome again. (Source: MTA Capital Construction)

Add Lower Manhattan residents to that ever-growing list of New Yorkers annoyed at the plans to overhaul the Fulton St. Transit Hub. They join the displaced merchants as everyone tries to finger the MTA for this misguided plan’s shortcomings.

On Monday night, residents of Community Board 1 gathered with MTA officials to discuss the fate of the hub. While my suggestion of simply sticking a ladder into a hole in the ground probably wasn’t among the top choices, CB1 members urged the MTA to stick with their original plans. Amy Zimmer of Metro New York has more:

Bill Wheeler, the MTA’s director of planning, asked CB1 members last night what they wanted to salvage from the original plans. The answer was: the original plans.

“It would be utterly unconscionable to not build this project in a timely manner after 145 Downtown businesses were sacrificed to assemble the site and the entire population of Lower Manhattan has been forced to navigate around and through this massive dirty construction for years,” CB1 wrote in a resolution.

With billions going to the Second Avenue Subway and East Side Access, why couldn’t the MTA find the money for Fulton Street, Goodkind asked. “We want the MTA to deliver,” Goodkind said.

Herein lies the rub: The MTA is spending its capital construction money on the Second Ave. Subway and the East Side Access project. The Feds were supposed to supply the money for the Fulton St. transit hub from the Lower Manhattan 9/11 recovery fund, and they budgeted $750 million for the project. When the costs starting coming in at a level significantly higher than that, the MTA couldn’t cover the overruns without sacrificing other projects.

And why should they? Much like the City did with the 7 line extension, the Feds were supposed to pick up the budget for the hub. Yet again, the MTA did not come to an agreement on cost overruns that fit the agency budget, and they’re left saddled with a $750-million hole in the ground and no hub plans.

At some point soon, the MTA will have to unveil plans for the area because business owners and residents will demand it. Some have suggested a private/public partnership, and if that’s what it takes to get this oft-delayed and expensive hub off the ground, so be it.

At some point, a Fulton St. Transit Hub will live here. It might just be a hole in the ground with a ladder. (Photo by Newkirk Plaza David from Subchat)

As the news keeps coming in, this Fulton St. overhaul isn’t getting much favorable play. While the New York Post graciously obnoxiously noted how they knew the ornate hub was doomed from the start, the displaced Fulton St. business owners had their proverbial day in the sun earlier this week.

Writing for the Newsday-owned amNew York, Ryan Chatelain tracked down some of the people who were forced out of Fulton St. by the MTA. Not only are they annoyed, but they claim the MTA didn’t adequately compensate them for their troubles. When it rains, it pours.

Mirza Mamur closed his art gallery, endured 10 months of unemployment, took out loans to make ends meet and then struggled to re-establish his business at a new location.

He was one of more than 140 business owners displaced by plans for the Fulton Street transit hub in lower Manhattan. Now, after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced it was again scaling back the project – and scrapping its centerpiece, a 110-foot-tall, steel-and-glass-domed entranceway – Mamur is asking if he was needlessly pushed out.

“If this thing doesn’t happen, of course I want my place back,” said Mamur, who owns Glamour Art Gallery, now in midtown. “That’s the reason I gave my store.”

But Mamur’s complaint isn’t necessarily about the construction delay. Mamur claims the MTA paid him just $12,000 to relocate while his own appraiser assessed his property at $120,000. Mamur is not alone. Billy Baldwin, a cookie maker, recieved $60,000 on a place that cost him $300,000 to open.

While the MTA, according to Chatelain, is going to reach a settlement with folks who feel undersold, this will just send costs that much higher. Real estate costs were the first sign that the Fulton St. Hub wouldn’t fall within the right budget; an ornate design for Grand Central South followed.

As time drags on and costs rise, budget estimates from two or three years ago will seem even less adequate. What’s the MTA to do? They have a hole in the ground; now they just need a completed transportation hub.