ConDig (15-Jun-18). A joint venture led by civil, building and specialty construction company Tutor Perini has secured a $410 million contract to extend the Purple Line subway in Los Angeles.
Under the deal with the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Tutor Perini and its subsidiary Frontier-Kemper will design and build twin bored tunnels for future Purple Line subway service spanning about 2.6 miles between Century City and the VA Hospital in Westwood.
The subway extension will provide a high-capacity, high-speed transit alternative for those traveling to and from Los Angeles’ Westside, according to Sylmar, California-based Tutor Perini.
Contract award for the Purple Line Section 3 Tunnels Project is expected in the next 30 to 60 days, with notice to start soon thereafter. Substantial completion is scheduled in the summer of 2022.
Tutor Perini is currently working on the Purple Line Extension Section 2 Project, which includes tunneling and construction of new stations in Beverly Hills and Century City.
The construction company has previously built major portions of Los Angeles’ Red Line subway and San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system.
It is also currently performing construction work on San Francisco’s Central Subway extension to Chinatown; California’s High-Speed Rail system, which will eventually connect San Francisco and Los Angeles; New York’s East Side Access project; and Washington State’s Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement project.
Last month, Tutor Perini said it had secured three civil engineering construction projects totaling about $1 billion. Its wholly owned subsidiary Lunda Construction is the managing partner in a joint venture that was the low bidder for the Southwest Light Rail Transit project in Minneapolis with a bid of about $800 million.
In February, Tutor Perini reported net income of $80.9 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2017, up from $30.3 million in the same period the year prior following a $53.3 million tax benefit. Revenue in the fourth quarter was $1.2 billion and was flat with the same period the year before.
The US construction market stuttered in April, with latest figures from Dodge Data & Analytics showing that construction starts nosedived 13% from the month prior to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $674.3 billion amid a slowdown in the three main construction sectors. Nonbuilding construction (public works and electric utilities/gas plants) plunged 22% after its 74% hike in March that featured the start of the $3.5 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline expansion in West Virginia and Virginia, as well as several large highway projects.
Nonresidential building fell 12% due to a slower pace by its institutional and manufacturing segments, while residential building dropped 9% amid reduced activity for both single family and multifamily housing.