NEW YORK – New York City Mayor Eric Adams released a new report on Nov. 25 showing significant progress in reforming how public infrastructure is constructed across the five boroughs. The plan is to cut red tape and deliver projects faster and more efficiently for New Yorkers.

The report outlines how the city has fully implemented, or is in the process of implementing, 100% of the Capital Process Reform Task Force’s 39 recommendations, made in 2022, to more efficiently deliver public infrastructure across New York City. The new law will build on that progress by expanding the city’s ability to use progressive design-build and construction manager build—two contracting models which cut time-consuming and expensive steps out of the outdated design-bid-build model, resulting in faster, more efficient project delivery.

Also passed was a measure that will allow New Yorkers to submit comments on procurements over $100,000 online as opposed to requiring an in-person hearing. This will save an average of 20 days on every applicable project timeline.

“If it seems like city construction projects take forever, and your street has been cracked open for years on end, there’s a reason why: archaic rules here in New York, that have been eliminated nearly everywhere else in the country, mandate that we go at a snail’s pace,” said Mayor Adams

Gov. Kathy Hochul noted that signing alternative delivery into law allows the city to streamline projects, eliminating the unnecessary obstacles that stand in the way of creating more community investments and good-paying jobs.

New York City Department of Design and Construction Commissioner Thomas Foley said it will now no longer take an emergency to use common-sense tools like CM-build. We have already started laying the groundwork to expand our award-winning alternative delivery program to New York City’s libraries, cultural institutions, and critical resiliency infrastructure, and we look forward to releasing our first solicitations in early 2025.

The Capital Process Reform Task Force was formed by Mayor Adams in April 2022, and it is led by Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi and Chief Delivery Officer Alison Landry. It is comprised of a group of leaders representing the construction industry, labor and minority- and women-owned business enterprises (M/WBEs) and tasked with undertaking a top-down review of the city’s capital process and recommending reforms, from project initiation to closeout.

The reforms recommended by the task force and implemented by the city are improving scoping and planning, cutting down project initiation time, removing redundant reviews from procurement, increasing M/WBE participation, managing projects more effectively, cutting down on change orders, standardizing and streamlining invoicing and payment, improving the delivery of projects for libraries and cultural institutions, and supporting implementation of a citywide capital project tracker.