New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) announced Thursday, Feb. 5, 2015 that GCT Constructors, JV, a joint venture consisting of Schiavone Construction Co. and John P. Picone Inc., has been awarded a contract to build the future Long Island Rail Road concourse at Grand Central Terminal.

The contract, worth a minimum of $404.8 million, will address one of the most visible portions of MTA’S East Side Access (ESA) project. The contract could increase to a total of $428.9 million. Funding is derived from thee Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and MTA local funds.

Architectural, structural, mechanical, and electrical facilities, as well as escalators and elevators, will comprise the future LIRR 375,000 square-foot passenger train concourse and related ventilation plants at 44th and 50th Streets, located below, and mostly to the west, of existing Grand Central Terminal operations involving LIRR sister agency Metro-North Railroad.

Work in the concourse includes building 17 deep escalators at 45th, 46th, 47th, and 48th Streets (with passageways already carved out), and installing elevators connecting the LIRR passenger concourse to the train station caverns 140 feet below Park Avenue, for the most part directly under existing train platforms in use today.

The work also includes installation of emergency egress stairs and the associated architectural, structural, mechanical and electrical finishes and equipment. The contract includes major civil work to create passenger connections from the new LIRR Concourse up to Grand Central’s (current) Lower Level Dining Concourse, Grand Central’s Biltmore Room on the Upper Level, the 47th Street Cross Passageway, and the 45th Street cross passageway.

“Up to this point, East Side Access work at Grand Central Terminal has been largely unseen by the public. This contract finally brings the construction from 140 feet below-ground up to the dining concourse at GCT and in other places where the public will finally start to see what’s been going on right underneath their feet,” said MTA Capital Construction President Michael Horodniceanu.

The contract also requires mechanical and electrical fit-out of ventilation buildings at 44th and 50th Streets, including installation of eight large fans as well as associated system equipment. The ventilation building structures have been built as part of prior contracts.

East Side Access, when activated, will allow direct LIRR access to Midtown Manhattan’s East Side; at present, most LIRR trains terminate at Penn Station, on Manhattan’s West Side.