By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
LOWER MANHATTAN — The clock is ticking down on the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center, an agency that coordinates myriad downtown building projects and is scheduled to sunset at the end of the year.
Local politicians and residents are calling on Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. David Paterson to extend the city-state agency, fearful that without it, traffic, noise and air quality could get even worse downtown.
"We couldn’t exist without it," said Pat Moore, who has lived across the street from the World Trade Center for over 30 years.
Moore calls the LMCCC whenever jackhammering at the Trade Center wakes her up at 4 a.m., or when construction vehicles idle illegally outside her Cedar Street apartment. The agency always tries to help, she said.
Founded in 2004, the LMCCC today manages over 22 million square feet of private and public construction projects south of Canal Street.
The agency holds frequent meetings to coordinate everything from street closures and utility work to deliveries of steel and concrete, making sure no street gets ripped up unnecessarily and everything gets done as efficiently as possible.
In addition to saving the government and private contractors an estimated $300 million since its inception, the LMCCC also provides a single place for residents to get information and lodge complaints related to construction.
And construction is about to become even more omnipresent downtown, as work at the World Trade Center, Fulton Street Transit Center and other projects ramps up, said Bob Harvey, executive director of the LMCCC.
The city is just 30 percent done with major street reconstructions in lower Manhattan, and the neighborhood won’t see its peak daily truck volume until the end of 2011, when 600 to 700 construction vehicles will arrive below Canal Street every day, Harvey said.
State Sen. Daniel Squadron, who represents lower Manhattan, stood outside the World Trade Center site Tuesday afternoon to demand that the governor and mayor take "urgent" action and extend the LMCCC for two to three years.
"Lower Manhattan needs it and our city depends on it," Squadron said. "If the LM-triple-C expires, everything is going to fall off track."
Catherine McVay Hughes, chairwoman of Community Board 1’s WTC Redevelopment Committee, said news of the agency’s pending expiration was "very, very, very disturbing," and she predicted people would move out of lower Manhattan if the agency were not renewed.
The LMCCC costs about $17 million a year to run and is funded by the Federal Transit Administration, the Port Authority, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the state Department of Transportation, the city, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. and the private sector.
Harvey said the mayor’s office told him they would sign onto an extension as soon as Paterson does.
A Paterson spokeswoman said the governor supports the extensions but is working out details with Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo.
Spokespeople for the mayor and Cuomo did not respond to requests for comment.
