Ground Zero contractor forced to work double shifts

A main contractor at the Ground Zero site in New York has been ordered to work double shifts to help the client curb costs for late work, which now add up to more than $43m (£28m).

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the client on the $19bn (£12bn) World Trade Centre project, called on Phoenix Constructors to double its workforce for 10 months to reduce delays, it has emerged.

Phoenix, a consortium of Slattery Skanska, Bovis Lend Lease, Fluor Corporation and Granite Construction Northeast, is working on the excavation of the site where three of the main four towers will be located, including tower 2, designed by Foster + Partners, and tower 3, designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners.

The consortium has had to provide extra workers from December 2007 until this month after the original deadline to complete excavation was missed.

Port Authority is being charged $300,000 (£192,000) by the site’s developer, Silverstein Properties, for every day it goes over the deadline of 30 June this year.

“We’ve had contractors working double shifts since the end of 2007 and so we have required a double workforce,” said a spokesperson for Port Authority. “We had an agreement that was reached in 2006 to meet a deadline, and we missed it. The damages we were subjected to went up daily and goes over a three-month period.”

The delay is just one in a series of setbacks and cost overruns since work began in 2006.

Earlier this month, Building revealed that the structural engineer on the Freedom Tower, WSP Cantor Seinuk, had doubled its workforce to support the contractor, Tishman Construction.