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Contractor Will Pay $3M to Fix Leaks at Hudson Yards 7 Train Station: MTA

By  Maya Rajamani and Nikhita Venugopal | March 22, 2016 9:19am 

 The 34th Street-Hudson Yards subway station opened in September.
34th Street-Hudson Yards subway station
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HUDSON YARDS — The newest stop on the 7 train is leaking — and now the MTA contractor who repeatedly bungled waterproofing at the 6-month-old station will pay another contractor an estimated $3 million to fix it, MTA officials said Monday.

Despite a “robust quality control process,” Yonkers Contracting Company — which the MTA hired in 2010 for waterproofing, excavating and mining work at the 34th Street-Hudson Yards station — failed to fix recurring problems with leaks at the station, MTA Capital Construction President Michael Horodniceanu said Monday at an MTA committee meeting.

Leaks, mold growth, bathroom flooding, broken escalators and visible water damage have become common sights at the $2.4 billion station since it opened in September, news outlets reported last week.

“The fact that we have leaks is evident that the waterproofing system is not performing as intended,” Horodniceanu said at the meeting.  

Yonkers Contracting tried to fix the waterproofing problems after the MTA first became aware of issues at the unopened station back in 2012, but each time the repairs proved temporary, Horodniceanu said.

A “specialty leak-remediation contractor,” Sovereign Hydroseal, hired by the MTA will start fixing the leakage problems Friday, he said.

Yonkers Contracting, which is paying for the work, will clean and replace tiles affected by the leaks, he added.

“There are issues that have apparently happened during construction, and that is clearly something we’re very displeased with,” he added.

A spokeswoman for Yonkers Contracting on Tuesday said work at the station was performed by a subcontractor, noting that the company has brought in another subcontractor to "remedy the situation."

"We're working with the MTA to resolve the issue," she added.

The 1.5-mile extension of the 7 train line and the construction of the new station cost $2.42 billion and was paid for mostly by the city, according to the MTA. The transit agency chipped in $53 million.

MTA board members and Department of Transportation officials at the meeting Monday expressed dismay over the scope of the problems at the station.

“This [station] was spanking new,” board member Jonathan Ballan said, suggesting a task force be formed to address the board about the leakage issues. “The level of surprise and disappointment cannot be overstated.”

Other attendees said they’d first learned of problems at the station through news reports.

“The point is, this committee did not know, and this board did not know,” said MTA board Vice Chairman Fernando Ferrer. “That’s a problem.”

Board member Allen Capelli said the problems at the station were “harmful to the people who utilize this station and the reputation of this agency.”

“The agency looks foolish as a result of this endeavor,” he added.