New York City Comptroller John Liu is set to release a report today that accuses the Bloomberg administration of allowing a city construction contract to balloon to 10 times the intended amount, according to the New York Times. According to the comptroller’s audit, the New York City Economic Development Corporation approved 21 changes to a contract with Turner Construction Company between July 2008 and January 2010, allowing the contract to jump in value to $73.5 million from its original amount, $7.5 million. Turner, which provided management on construction sites including the Brooklyn Army Terminal and Essex Street Market, among others, also received $3.3 million in “inappropriate and questionable payments” from the city. [more]

The city’s School Construction Authority appears likely to emerge as one of the biggest real estate winners of the recession, having taken advantage of the lower costs of construction and the large supply of stalled private sector projects to build a record 26 new public school facilities this year. According to the New York Times, the authority is in its second year of an $11.7 billion five-year capital plan and that has catapulted it to the forefront of the construction industry. “All of a sudden, marquee construction firms that would only do projects that were $15 million and above are bidding for SCA jobs,” said Louis Coletti, who heads the Building Trades Employers’ Association. Comments

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Tishman Speyer has $4.4 million in overdue bills on six Chicago office properties, according to Crain’s. Jones Lang LaSalle and New York-based Turner Construction are heading up a group of real estate firms and contractors who have filed claims against the landlord for unpaid invoices for the properties. The properties are part of a 5.7-million-square-foot portfolio, on which Tishman,  headquartered in Rockefeller Center, is also negotiating a debt restructuring agreement with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. [more]

Joe Kranz of Turner Construction in Haiti

From the March issue: New York City architecture and construction firms are heading to Haiti in an effort to help rebuild the devastated Caribbean nation, which was hit with a magnitude 7 earthquake in January. The interest from these firms comes as the international response is shifting from short-term assistance to long-term reconstruction. The process, which will likely mean rethinking the way the poverty-stricken country builds everything from homes to hospitals, could cost $14 billion, according to the Inter-American Development Bank, an organization that focuses on economic development in Latin America and the Caribbean. These New York firms plan to offer Haiti the latest technology so that more-secure buildings can rise out of the rubble.

From the February issue: As New York City construction firms get slammed by the downturn, they are turning to more modest projects, in some cases taking on multimillion-dollar renovations rather than the multibillion-dollar skyscrapers. While it’s clear that the collapse of the New York development market has taken a toll on builders and brokers, there may be nobody in the industry hit as hard as construction firms. As banks have largely cut off financing for new projects and cranes have been mothballed, thousands of contractors have lost their jobs. “It’s having a devastating impact on the construction market,” said Lou Coletti, president of the Building Trades Employers’ Association, which represents 1,700 construction management and contractor firms. “There are very few, if any, new projects moving forward.” To combat that lack of work, major New York construction firms are bidding for much smaller projects and diversifying into public-sector work, while other firms have been forced into bankruptcy protection.[more] [more]