Roughly 500 wooden piles are still standing in the Hudson River mud where Pier 68 used to be, and the Gateway Development Commission would rather pay to pull them now than find them with a tunnel boring machine in 2028.
GDC’s board approved an $88 million change order on July 8 adding the pile removal and additional ground stabilization to Weeks Marine‘s existing Hudson River contract. The Cranford, New Jersey marine contractor, a Kiewit subsidiary, expects to begin later this year.
What the Hudson Tunnel change order covers
The base scope had Weeks Marine stabilizing a 1,200-foot by 100-foot section of riverbed, work that started mid-river in 2024. The change order extends that work area about 265 feet further toward Manhattan and adds the pile pull. Crews removed a small number of piles in 2025, enough to learn what the rest of the job would demand: cofferdam requirements, how often the timber breaks off below the mudline, and how much grouting the resulting voids need.
Why the owner added scope instead of bidding it
“After assessing multiple options, it was concluded that adding this work to the scope of the existing Hudson River Ground Stabilization Project is the most efficient and cost-effective approach,” said Jim Starace, GDC’s chief of program delivery.
That’s the practical calculus. Weeks Marine already has spuds in the river, a mobilized marine spread, and a year of site-specific knowledge about how these piles behave. A fresh procurement would mean remobilization costs, a new learning curve on the same obstructions, and schedule risk against a fixed 2028 boring date.
“Megaprojects, especially as large and as complex as the Hudson Tunnel Project, bring new challenges every day,” said GDC CEO Tom Prendergast. “GDC has delivered this project successfully to date by thinking ahead, anticipating problems and taking proactive action.”
Differing site conditions, bought down early
Strip away the press language and this is a differing-site-conditions claim the owner decided to buy out in advance. Timber piles from a demolished pier are exactly the kind of obstruction that stops a TBM cold, and a stopped machine under a river is a schedule and cost event of a different magnitude than $88 million. Paying up front to clear the alignment is cheap insurance by megaproject arithmetic.
It’s a pattern worth watching on other waterfront tunneling work. Owners who treat legacy marine structures as a known unknown, and price the removal into an already-mobilized contract, avoid the fight over who owns the risk later. Compare the approach on the Roberts Street Railroad Bridge replacement, where marine impact protection is designed in from the start.
Source: Construction Dive.