Central Consulting & Contracting to complete $23.3 million design/build project

Central Consulting & Contracting, a leading New York City-based medical and commercial construction firm, was selected as contractor to design/build a six-story, 605-space parking garage on the St. Barnabas Hospital campus. The new 210,000 s/f structure will be built on a site that is currently an existing surface parking lot. Central Consulting & Contracting, which has completed previous projects for St. Barnabas, will oversee development, hire and supervise required contractors and an estimated 173 union workers, monitor programming, design development and construction documents and maintain control of the pre-cast structure's budget and schedule. Estimated completion is 12-14 months. Although the parking garage is not physically attached to hospital facilities, Central Consulting & Contracting president and CEO, Richard Simone, has anticipated the distinctive challenges inherent in construction in busy, operational medical facilities. "In the early planning stages, the decision was made to use a drilled caisson system, which is more costly, rather than a driven pile system for noise abatement," said Simone. The parking garage project has been 2 1/2 years in the making. It will cost $23.3 million with $19.8 million financed in triple tax-exempt bonds by the New York City Capital Resource Corp., a subsidiary of the city's Economic Development Corp., authorized under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.