Pepe Foresees 'Huge Impact' from Tappan Zee Project

TARRYTOWN, NY-The impetus behind the Cuomo administration's decision to replace the three-mile-long Tappan Zee Bridge, which connects this Westchester County community with Nyack on the western shore of the Hudson River, may have been federal funding through an Obama administration program that identified high-priority infrastructure projects across the US. However, Ross Pepe, president of the Construction Industry Council of Westchester and Hudson Valley Inc., also based in Tarrytown, tells GlobeSt.com that the need to address the Empire State's longest span has long been evident.

“The signs were obvious,” says Pepe, who will moderate a panel of experts on the subject at RealShare Westchester Fairfield Counties on August 15 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in White Plains. For one thing, the bridge has outlived its useful life: “it was built for a 50-year life cycle and it's already approaching 60.” Cost estimates of structural rehabilitation for the Tappan Zee run well over $1 billion, “and that would be for a bridge with no added capacity.”

Adding capacity—including mass transit options—is a key factor when a bridge is already carrying traffic volume that's nearly 40% greater than it was intended to handle. When it opened in December 1955, the Tappan Zee was designed to accommodate up to 100,000 cars daily; currently it carries nearly 140,000.

Traffic jams are frequent, and Pepe notes that the bridge's lack of breakdown lanes only worsens the congestion. A movable barrier system installed in the 1990s helped matters for a time, but soon aggravated them because the addition of the barrier meant narrower lanes, and therefore more accidents.

The twin-span structure that's now in pre-construction will address these issues, while also lasting “for the next 100 to 150 years without any major maintenance or renovations,” Pepe says. More than that, he notes, Gov. Andrew Cuomo saw the replacement span—which his administration has dubbed the New NY Bridge—as a vehicle for growing the region's economy.

Partly that's due to the scale of the project. It will be built at a projected cost of approximately $4 billion, and will lead to 7,000 construction jobs. Pepe cites a report from the New York State Department of Labor projecting a “multiplier effect” of 38,000 jobs from those 7,000 construction positions.

Along with industries ranging from transportation to foodservice and insurance, the project will also benefit the region's CRE sector. “The contractor”—Tappan Zee Constructors, a consortium of four principal participants—“has already consumed thousands of square feet of office space here in the corridor, with more to come as their subcontractors move into the area.”

In short, says Pepe, the Tappan Zee project will have “a huge impact on this area. We believe it represents a big step in turning this area around from the recession that has been here for going on five years.”