NSLS-II Contract Will Mean Hundreds of Jobs for Long Island
February 10, 2009
UPTON, N.Y. — The U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory has announced the selection of the general contractor for construction of the conventional facilities at the National Synchrotron Light Source II, which will create as many as 1,000 jobs over the next several years. Torcon, Inc., a New Jersey firm with many projects in New York State, has been chosen to construct the building that will house the accelerator ring, the largest component of the machine. Torcon estimates that 90 percent of the total construction contract cost of more than $170 million will be spent directly with Long Island contractors and suppliers. This phase of the facility’s construction is expected to last through 2012.
The contract to construct the conventional facilities at NSLS-II will not only enhance Brookhaven National Laboratory’s standing as a world-leading research facility, it will also bring a direct economic benefit to Long Island and New York State. The project team estimates that some $91 million in materials will be bought from Long Island and other New York suppliers. Approximately $63 million in labor, most of it supplied by local labor unions, will be needed to complete the construction of the conventional facilities. The average manpower level will be about 125 workers, with a peak of approximately 300.
“We are very pleased to mark this significant project milestone,” said Associate Laboratory Director for Light Sources and NSLS-II Project Director Steve Dierker. “A great deal of work on the part of many talented and dedicated people has led us to where we can begin construction of this state-of-the-art machine.”
NSLS-II will be an advanced, highly optimized, third-generation medium energy storage ring that will provide advanced new tools for discovery class science – science that will enhance national and energy security and help drive abundant, safe, and clean energy technologies. The x-ray brightness and resolution of NSLS-II will be world leading, exceeding that of any other light source currently existing or under construction, and it will be 10,000 times brighter than the present NSLS at Brookhaven.
The machine will be the newest member of a suite of advanced light sources and neutron facilities operated by DOE's Office of Science that are used by more than 9,000 researchers annually from all disciplines. By providing a wide range of high resolution probes for nanoscience, NSLS-II will enable scientists to focus on some of the nation’s most important scientific challenges at the nanoscale level, including clean, affordable energy, molecular electronics, and high-temperature superconductors. NSLS-II will also enable structural studies of the smallest crystals in structural biology. The Department of Energy has approved a total project cost of $912 million.
The conventional facilities contract is the first and largest of several in a construction process that will culminate in the launch of the new facility in 2015. Torcon specializes in projects involving technical facilities, including laboratories and pharmaceutical plants. Engineering News-Record, the construction industry's leading news publication, ranks Torcon among the nation's top 10 builders of R&D facilities. In addition to its experience in the construction of complex facilities, Torcon has taken a leadership role in construction safety, having successfully established formal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Strategic Partnerships on a variety of its projects. At the forefront of its safety efforts is Torcon's alignment with the Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) — OSHA's most demanding set of standards. Torcon is a nationally recognized partner in VPP and has earned the highest possible VPP rating.
The NSLS-II is funded by the Department of Energy Office of Science.
For more information about the NSLS-II project, visit the website at www.bnl.gov/nsls2.
2009-10910 | INT/EXT | Newsroom
