The bids are in on the substation that keeps the trains moving through Washington Heights. MTA Construction & Development opened six bids on Nov. 20, 2024 for contract P36710, the top-to-bottom renewal of the Washington Heights Substation on the 8th Avenue line, and TAP Electrical Contracting Svs Inc came in apparent low at $69,474,750. The substation is the above-ground plant at 564 W. 170th St. that feeds traction power — the juice in the third rail — to the A, C and 1 trains.
The top of the tab was a knife fight. L.K. Comstock & Company LLC bid $70,309,000, just 1.2 percent behind TAP. E.J. Electric Installation Co. came third at $75,365,327, then Voltamp Electrical Contractors Inc at $77,373,500 and TC Electric, LLC at $79,931,500, with Infinity Contracting Services Corp closing out the tab at $90,509,500. Six bidders on a job the MTA advertised at $50 million to $100 million is a healthy field for heavy traction power work, and two low numbers that close say the front-runners read the job the same way.
What the low bidder signed up for is a gut renewal of a working power plant. Per the MTA's solicitation notice: decommission and replace the traction power gear — switchgear, transformers, rectifiers, DC breakers — install new property line boxes for the Con Edison service coming in, and run new positive and negative feeder cable from the substation out to the circuit breaker houses and the third rail itself. The old remote terminal unit gives way to PLC and digital input/output cabinets — the controls that let the MTA run the substation remotely instead of keeping a body in the room. The crew quarters and bathroom get refurbished, a new staircase goes in, and the overhead equipment crane gets rebuilt controls. The contract term is 1,186 calendar days — about three and a quarter years — 100 percent federally funded, with a 22.5 percent DBE goal.
Why it matters uptown: subway cars do not carry their own power. They draw it from the third rail, and the third rail is only as strong as the substation feeding it. By the MTA's own project description, this one serves the IND 8th Avenue line — the A and the C — and the IRT 7th Avenue line, the 1. Those are the lines Washington Heights rides. When a substation's rectifiers and breakers age out, riders feel it as slow zones and stalled trains, and the fix is exactly this kind of job — renew the plant before it fails, not after. Nobody on the platform at 168th Street will ever see the new switchgear at 564 W. 170th St. That is the point.
The standing caveat applies: an apparent low is not an award. A bid tab goes to review, the numbers and the paperwork get checked, and the agency can still go another way. One more wrinkle worth knowing here — P36710 was advertised as an A+B bidding contract, meaning bids get compared on price plus a dollar value assigned to schedule, so a bid-day comparison figure and a final contract value are not the same number.
On this one, the review ran its course. MTA C&D's own award records show the contract went to TAP Electrical Contracting Service, Inc. on Dec. 27, 2024, at a contract value of $43,434,000 with 22.5 percent DBE participation. For the electrical shops that chased it, the takeaway stands: six serious bidders and a 1.2 percent gap at the top means MTA traction power work is getting priced tight, and there is more of it in the capital program.