Some of New York State’s major transportation infrastructure projects are now benefiting from expanded use of the design-build process—but a costly pro-union rider has been attached to proposed legislation extending design-build authorization to public works financed by New York City, and could set a troubling precedent.
Design-build reduces costs and construction times on projects by, as the name suggests, allowing public agencies to select a single contractor to both design and to build a project. It eliminates the delays and cost overruns that can come from bringing in a construction firm to build another firm’s design—especially on large, complex projects. Since 2011, the Legislature has authorized design-build contracting for five agencies, including the Thruway Authority and Department of Transportation.
Local governments, however, are still waiting for a green light to use design-build. Senator Andrew Lanza (R-Staten Island) and Assemblyman Michael Benedetto (D-Bronx) have introduced a pair of measures that would allow different groups of New York City agencies to use design-build on projects costing more than $10 million—but only on the condition that the builders sign project labor agreements with local construction unions. The newer set of bills, S8111/A10709, could be voted on in either house at short notice as the end of session nears.
Mandatory PLAs can lead to higher costs by reducing the number of eligible bidders. Their impact on transportation construction projects was recently on display in the Hudson Valley. And the Lanza-Benedetto bill could potentially establish mandatory PLAs as the price of admission for local governments awaiting design-build authorization.
Lanza and Benedetto aren’t the first to attempt a maneuver of this nature. Governor Andrew Cuomo included an almost identical requirement in his 2014 proposal to extend the design-build authorization for state agencies. In that case, the Legislature rejected the new conditions, opting to let the authorizing statute expire rather than accept Cuomo’s conditions. Design-build was ultimately reauthorized for the same state agencies in 2015 without the PLA requirement.
The PLA push is also notable because it benefits the private-sector building trades unions at the expense of public-sector unions, which have consistently opposed design-build because it takes work away from government employees. The Public Employees Federation (PEF), which represents state Department of Transportation engineers who are sidelined by design-build, has gone so far as to level claims that the use of design-build jeopardizes public safety.
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