Another victim has crawled out of the real estate pile at the Uptown Bus Terminal project.
Los Angeles-based construction giant Tutor Perini is set to claim an $83 million loss after losing a protracted legal battle at the George Washington Bridge bus station, a retail and transportation hub in Washington Heights.
Tutor Perini is the lead contractor on the public-private partnership project, which was completed in 2017 after years of delays and wrangling over cost overruns. The developer, a limited liability company that included SJM Partners and Douglas Slayton, went bankrupt, and attempts by contractors to collect payments hit a snag this month.
listed company tell investors This week, it will report a first-quarter construction loss and negative earnings per share after a federal court ruled that its claims against the bankrupt entity were not secured.
The show began in 2015, two years after the SJM-Slayton entity hired Tutor Perini. At the 178th Street and Broadway bus stop, each side blamed the other for two years of delays and a $17 million budget overrun.
The Port Authority has committed 103,000 square feet of new retail space in the busy terminal to the developer on a 99-year ground lease in exchange for its financial investment. The agency put a lot of emphasis on public-private partnerships at the time, believing they could transfer risk to the private sector.
But the 2016 completion deadline came and went, and the developer was fined $5,000 a day. When the station finally reopened in 2017, agency officials called the delay “aAwkward“
The developer filed for bankruptcy in 2019, citing delays and higher-than-anticipated costs, including a four-year arbitration process with Tutor Perini. To liquidate the developer’s assets, the retail lease was sold to JMB Capital for $23 million. JMB was later resold $46 million.
Tutor Perini also fared less well, after the Second Circuit ruled on April 10 that its claims did not merit priority in bankruptcy proceedings. For what it’s worth, the company told investors it “remains confident that it is legally entitled to collect all or substantially all” of the renovation costs.
Tutor Perini and the port authority did not respond to requests for comment.
