HART: Utility Work In Town Will Cost At Least $135M More Than Expected
Rail officials didn’t have a clear idea of how much the relocation work would cost when they awarded the contract to get it going.
Local rail officials disclosed Thursday that they鈥檝e vastly underestimated the cost to relocate utilities along the transit line鈥檚 last 4 miles into town — and that鈥檚 led them to raise the transit project鈥檚 price tag for the first time in more than three years.
Efforts to clear the maze of utility lines that weave from Middle Street to Ala Moana Center will require an , according to the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation.
That鈥檚 on top of a $400 million contract signed in 2018 to get that work done.
Rail officials say they aim to stay closer to the $135 million end by hiring a second contractor, which would help the existing contractor, Nan Inc., complete the relocation work more swiftly.
Contingency dollars freed up from the expiring guideway and station contracts on the west side should cover most if not all of those expenses, HART Executive Director Andrew Robbins said.
Still, the result is that for the first time since 2016 HART has raised rail鈥檚 overall construction cost from $8.165 billion to $8.21 billion.
That estimate does not include rail鈥檚 financing costs, which are what put the final price tag above $9 billion.
HART had previously touted keeping its budget in check as a key accomplishment.
To be sure, the $45 million increase is relatively small for the multibillion-dollar megaproject. But it comes amid rail鈥檚 uncertain financial future thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic and risk analyses that show project costs steadily creeping even higher.
鈥淲e need to be concerned. We need to really watch this,鈥 said retired construction executive Glenn Nohara, who chairs the HART board鈥檚 Project Oversight Committee.
HART鈥檚 latest risk analysis, for April, forecasts a 65% chance that the final construction costs will come in at $8.29 billion, according to Paul Johnson, the agency’s risk management director.
That鈥檚 up from nearly $8.25 billion just a month ago.
It鈥檚 also just shy of the $8.3 billion budget in HART鈥檚 . The Federal Transit Administration demanded HART use that amount because it determined the $8.165 million estimate was too low.
Nonetheless, HART Executive Director Andrew Robbins expressed confidence Thursday that the agency was effectively managing costs.
The new utility-relocation cost estimates may be large but they鈥檙e fairly conservative, he said.
Taking A Closer Look
Nohara and several other committee members now plan to investigate more closely how the cost estimates for that utility relocation were so far off.
A presentation delivered to the committee Thursday mentioned several, expensive culprits: a $75 million difference in water removal and , a $40 million difference in time and materials, a $25 million difference in managing traffic during the work and a $20 million difference in burying high-voltage power lines underground, among other problems.
The so-called contract, which rail staff often calls “CCUR,” was devised to keep rail work going as HART and the city have struggled for years to award the last major construction contract.
Most of the plans and designs for those relocations hadn鈥檛 been done when CCUR was awarded, however.
HART structured the utility contract so that the work could be done piecemeal, when ready, for up to $400 million. Nan got the contract in May 2018.
Later that year, however, HART realized 鈥we weren鈥檛 making progress fast enough,鈥 Robbins said, with most of the work limited to night hours. Crews have been scrambling to catch up ever since. They’re still several months behind.
In March, Nan crews got the permits they needed to work around the clock along Dillingham Boulevard. They’ve looked to take advantage of light traffic during the pandemic shutdown, with travel reduced to one lane in each direction between Middle and Mokauea streets.
Nohara said Thursday that it’s not clear yet when the group studying utility costs will report back to the rest of the board.
In the meantime, the approvals process for the utility work needs to be expedited, Nohara said. There needs to be a way for all the different utilities to approve the work more quickly.
The move, he said, could help keep costs in check and rail on schedule. “Get all the parties together — that’ll go a long way,” Nohara said.
Robbins, meanwhile, said that the risk of more cost increases will go down as more of the actual work gets completed.
