Bids opened August 29, 2024 at MTA Construction & Development on contract C30854, and eighteen contractors answered the call. Avenue Contracting Inc. came in apparent low at $12,120,000 to rehabilitate the roofs and enclosures on three subway power substations in Queens — full tear-offs, new rubber roofs and masonry repair on the buildings that keep the third rail hot.

The top of the tab was tight. FOS Development Corp. sat second at $12,430,000, just 2.6 percent behind the low. LoDuca Associates was third at $12,891,340, with M Bhuiyan Construction at $13,436,000 and JM&A Construction at $13,578,000 close behind. From there the numbers climbed all the way to Lo Sardo General Contractors at $19,854,000, the high bid on the day. Eighteen bidders on one roofing-and-masonry package is a crowd, and the names ran the full range — firms that chase transit jobs many times this size, like Navillus and J-Track, lined up next to smaller general contractors. When that many estimators price the same job, nobody is treating envelope work at this size as leftovers.

Here is what the low bidder signed up for, straight from the MTA's solicitation notice: strip three existing roofing systems off entirely and replace them with complete EPDM systems — that's ethylene propylene diene monomer, a rubber membrane roof — including drainage, skylights and clerestory windows, the high windows up near the roofline. The job also covers repairing roof slabs and parapets, tearing out and rebuilding deteriorated sections of brick wall, installing expansion joints, and replacing roof access ladders, access doors, roof curbs, exhaust fans, ducts and vent pipes. The three buildings are the 66 Astoria/24th Avenue Power Substation at 24-28 31st St. in Astoria, the 18-58 Street Power Substation at 57-10 Roosevelt Ave. in Woodside, and the 137 Jamaica Avenue/120th Street Power Substation at 87-17 120th St. in the 11418 zip. The MTA advertised the work at $10 million to $50 million, 100 percent MTA-funded, with substantial completion set at 730 calendar days — two years on the clock.

The bid documents show the MTA amended that solicitation eight times before bids finally opened, and five of those addenda pushed the due date back — from a June 6, 2024 release out to August 5, then August 12, August 21, August 26 and finally August 29, the day bids actually opened. One piece of scope disappeared along the way: the skylight work mentioned in the original notice was pulled entirely by Addendum No. 1 and confirmed dropped again in Addendum No. 3. There is no skylight work at any of the three substations — a bidder pricing straight off the original spec list would have carried work that was never really there.

The addenda also show how far MTA C&D went to nail down quantities before locking in a price. Addendum No. 3 alone answered 45 bidder questions, nearly all of them contractors flagging mismatches between the masonry schedule and the actual drawings — how many square feet of brick to replace at each building, whether a water-repellent sealer coat applies to one substation or two (the agency confirmed it's required at both 58th Street and the Jamaica Avenue building), which terracotta coping tile matches the existing roofline at 58th Street (the agency named two acceptable manufacturers, Logan Clay Products and Superior Clay). More than once, the agency's own answer was to reissue a corrected drawing rather than pick a number on the spot — a reminder that a bid quantity on a big envelope job is not final until an addendum locks it down.

All three substations stayed live through construction — the MTA does not shut a power substation down to reroof it. Asbestos-containing material is present at the work sites, but abatement was handled by a separate contractor hired directly by MTA C&D; Avenue Contracting's crews had to coordinate track outages and stay clear of it, not handle it themselves. Contact-rail alarms and rubber insulating mats were required any time power came off near an active third rail, and MTA C&D warned bidders up front that nothing gets scheduled between Thanksgiving and New Year's — the railroad won't risk interference with holiday service. The apparent low bidder also had three business days from the bid due date to turn around a full construction phasing plan, built in Primavera P6 scheduling software and covering the first 120 days on site, and had to defend it at a hearing before the contract could move forward.

These are not glamour buildings, but the subway does not move without them. By the MTA's own numbers, its substations take as much as 27,000 volts off the power grid and convert it into the 625 volts the third rail carries — the current that actually pushes every train. The three buildings in this package sit in Astoria, Woodside and along the Jamaica Avenue corridor, three busy transit neighborhoods in Queens. A sound roof and tight brick walls over that electrical gear are what stand between a hard rain and the equipment that keeps trains running for the riders who live there. That is the whole job: keep the water out of the rooms that make the power.

The standing caveat on every tab: an apparent low is not an award. The agency reviews the bids, checks the paperwork and the numbers, and only then signs a contract. In this case the review has run its course — the MTA's own 2024 award list shows C30854 awarded to Avenue Contracting Inc. on November 8, 2024, at $9,600,000, below the figure read at the opening. The contract carries participation goals of 15 percent MBE, 15 percent WBE and 6 percent SDVOB, which meant real subcontracting room on this job for certified firms.