[Image via Curbed.com]
So it looks like another one of the major Lower Manhattan re-building efforts is facing budget problems. Santiago Calatrava’s path station entrance may be looking at a major value engineering effort in so much that it may be another architect’s rein-visioning of the station, according to an post on Curbed.com. This is bad news for the neighborhood, first the Freedom Tower has yet to start construction (lets not even talk about the deisgn process) then the Fulton Street Transit Hub is looking at ways to work their budget, now this. All of this makes me wonder, has the New York City development community been a victim of the most American of financial flaws – spending beyond their means? Or is this a case of bureaucratic inaction catching up with rising construction costs and inflation? Either way, I think that this is a specter of what is to happening across the board with American projects, I see it in my own office as well. Clients either commission Coach tastes on a Canal Street Budget, or they get massive sticker shock when they see their cost estimate and throw a ton of money into value engineering exercises which end up sucking part of the cost-value of the project away.
So where do we go from here? One of two places, clients need to learn what they can afford and settle for that- which is not likely to happen, or architects need to learn how to better stretch their budgets and keep an eye on the bottom line. The latter seems more reasonable to me. In the current practice of architecture I have yet to know anyone who does their own cost estimating, most firms hire out. Much like catering, its hard to really know where your money’s going and to plan for a budget while designing when someone else does the math. The current architectural work force has to go out of their way (and find a willing management) to learn about project financial and how to plan accordingly. This is a weak point in our profession and can lead to shattered dreams, broken promises, and lots of runny, runny yolk on your face. Much like the port authority has now.
[2017 UPDATE] Calatrava’s station has been built and opened to the public, but the critical reception to it fell along the lines I described previously. This New York Times Article from March 2016 gives an update on the long history of the project and the eventual completed space. The takeaway is that, like the much maligned second avenue subway or the new silver line for the Washington, DC Metro, it seems public architecture and infrastructure is too often slow to fruition and costs too much for the final product.