MTA Opens New Fulton Transit Center Entrance
The inside of the newly opened 135 William Street entrance for the Fulton Transit Center. Photo courtesy of MTA New York City Transit.
Practically every weekend, you will notice a diversion involving MTA NYC Transit’s continued work at finishing the Fulton Transit Center. While the project is scheduled to be completed in 2014, the agency has opened a new entrance within it which is located at 135 William Street. Here is more via a press release:
The Fulton Street Transit Center continues to take shape as MTA Capital Construction reached an important milestone today with the opening of a new entrance at 135 William Street in Lower Manhattan. The Fulton Street Transit Center is more than 50 percent complete and on track for its scheduled June 2014 completion.
The new entrance will provide customers with improved access to the 2/3/4/5/a/c/j/z lines and will ease congestion between the Fulton Street 2/3 and a/c stations. Additional entrances at 150 William Street and 129 Fulton Street are also set to open in 2012.
“We have reached yet another significant milestone as we move forward to complete what will become a landmark transportation facility,” said MTA Chairman and CEO Jay H. Walder. “Once complete, this complex will provide our customers with a more seamless experience at this major downtown hub. The Transit Center will improve travel for hundreds of thousands of daily commuters and Lower Manhattan residents and visitors while providing a modern and convenient retail location.”
Completion of the station entrance at 135 William Street is part of a larger contract which reconfigures the Fulton Street a/c mezzanine. All structural work has been completed on the a/c mezzanine and final finishes are going up including glass tiles and LCD-lit advertising panels on corridor walls. Improvements will include two additional staircases from the platform to the mezzanine (for a total of ten new staircases), along with five new elevators and two new escalators. Center columns on the mezzanine have also been removed to improve pedestrian flow. The a/c mezzanine is schedule to open in 2013.
The 135 William Street entrance includes a restored mural and gate from the McAlpin Hotel, which were previously installed in the Fulton Street a/c station in 2000. They were removed in 2009 and stored in preparation for their eventual display in the new complex. The Marine Grill mural is one of six murals that are being refinished and re-installed throughout the Fulton Street Transit Center.
When fully complete, the $1.4 billion Fulton Street Transit Center will connect five subway stations and eleven subway lines, improving access for over 300,000 daily customers that pass through this major transit hub in Lower Manhattan. The new transit center complex will also provide over 25,000 square feet of new modern retail space, and will upgrade the complex to full ADA compliance. The project also includes the restoration of the historic Corbin Building which will connect passengers to the complex.
Other elements of the complex continue to progress. Superstructure steel for the transit center building is slated for completion this fall. The southbound Cortlandt Street platform on the r line will reopen on or before September 11. Station rehabilitation on the 4/5 continues and the Dey Street Concourse is structurally complete. Restoration of the historic Corbin Building is continuing inside the 1888 landmark and is expected to be complete in late 2012.
Some components of the Transit Center have already been completed and opened for customer use, including the rehabilitated 2/3 Fulton Street Station, new 4/5 Fulton Street Station southern entrances, and the northbound Cortlandt Street platform on the r line.
“Today, customers benefit from the added convenience of the 135 William Street entrance, which captures the historic feel of Lower Manhattan and improves access to the subway lines at Fulton Street. The opening of the entrance also marks another step towards the completion of the Fulton Street Transit Center which will integrate mass transit and retail space within a state of the art facility poised to become Lower Manhattan’s next great public space,” said Michael Horodniceanu, President of MTA Capital Construction.
For continued updates on the project, click here.
The new entrance looks good & will hopefully remain in good condition for the remaining future. This actually is one of my favorite capital projects which I can’t wait to see in its full glory.
xoxo Transit Blogger
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