The Department of Citywide Administrative Services awarded the 1 Centre Street Elevator Modernization to Prismatic Development Corp. for $73,878,998, according to an award notice in the City Record on Sept. 2 (contract 85624B0009001, competitive sealed bid). That is the award. The interesting part is the bid tab it came from.
DCAS opened six bids on Jan. 22, 2026 (bid 85624B0009). Its own tabulation ranks them: Nouveau Elevator Industries LLC at $32,982,000; ACS System Associates, Inc at $54,900,000; Iannelli Construction Co Inc at $62,400,000; Prismatic Development Corp. at $74,379,000; Gramercy Group Inc at $78,623,000; and Peter Scalamandre & Sons Inc at $80,713,000. Prismatic was fourth. The award went to the fourth bidder, at $500,002 below its tabulated number.
The spread on that tab was enormous. Low to high ran 144.7%, and first to second was $21,918,000 apart, a 66.5% gap. The median of the six was $68,389,500. The award is about 2.24 times the lowest bid on the sheet.
What the record does not show: why the three lower bids did not become the contract. There is no rejection notice, no rebid and no new solicitation in the City Record between January and the award, and the city's procurement portal carries the award under the same solicitation number as the January opening, so this was not a rebid. DCAS's tabulation carries its standard disclaimer that every bid is subject to responsiveness and responsibility checks, and that those checks can change results without notice. That is as far as the record goes, and it is as far as we will go. PASSPort shows the contract registered on Aug. 3 at $73,879,000, with a term running Aug. 17, 2026 to Aug. 16, 2029. The award notice and the registered amount differ by $2.
The job itself: modernize the elevators at 1 Centre Street, the David N. Dinkins Manhattan Municipal Building. DCAS's own building page lists 33 elevators, 25 floors in the main building plus another 15 stories in the central tower, and nearly 1 million square feet of offices holding more than 2,000 employees from about a dozen agencies. It was built from 1909 to 1914 to a McKim, Mead & White design and is a designated city landmark. The solicitation, first advertised in September 2025 with a mandatory site visit, set an estimated three-year term. The bid date slid from Oct. 21, 2025 to Jan. 22, 2026.
Why this matters. An elevator modernization in a landmarked, fully occupied tower is a long, phased job: cars come out of service a few at a time while thousands of people still have to get upstairs. Bidders read that risk very differently, from $33 million to $80.7 million. When the contract lands two and a quarter times above the low bid, every estimator who priced it should want to know which reading the city ended up paying for, and the public record so far does not answer that.
What to do next. Elevator, electrical, fire alarm, controls and cab-finish subs and suppliers price to Prismatic Development Corp.; the contract is registered and the clock started Aug. 17. Board listing: RFI-001757.