The 172-acre Governors Island is less than half a mile from Lower Manhattan in New York, New York. The island gained its current name in the 1690s during the British colonial era, when it was set aside for the king’s governors. It served various military purposes from the 1750s until 1996, when it was decommissioned. The federal government sold the island to the City and State of New York in 2003.
Today, the Trust for Governors Island is striving to turn the island into a year-round global hub and destination for climate solutions, research, education, culture, leisure, and hospitality. To support that goal, the Trust and Skanska are building a new substation.
The project involves constructing a new, ground-up, two-story substation building on the southern end of the island. The 32,000-gross-square-foot building will enclose the new substation electrical equipment, along with associated adjacent site civil work to construct a portion of a new right of way.
The scope also includes installing approximately 1.5 miles of underground electrical duct banks, feeder cables, and tie-ins to an existing substation building on the north end of the island. A third element — installing new 27-kilovolt (kV) and 5-kV electrical equipment — is for future capital projects.
“The substation will provide essential energy infrastructure upgrades to prepare the island for current development projects in the works, including new Harbor School expansion and future developments such as the New York Climate Exchange campus,” said James Argento, Skanska’s Senior MEP Project Manager.
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The 1.5 miles of underground electrical duct banks and associated feeders that extend across Governors Island will strengthen energy delivery. The 27-kV and 5-kV cables will run throughout the duct banks and serve the entire island, improving power reliability and capacity.
By tying in the existing B130 Substation Building at the north end of the island to the new 27-kV Substation Building located at the south end, the island will have improved power access.
Another element of the project is improving a public park in Brooklyn. The team is providing infrastructure upgrades, including transforming a handball court into a pickleball court to better serve the community.
Nearly 1.7 million people live in Manhattan, and approximately 8.6 million reside in the five boroughs. With so many people and businesses relying on a steady flow of goods and materials, shipments are constantly moving into New York. Yet, Argento lists logistics as one of the biggest project challenges.
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“All material and equipment deliveries must be carefully scheduled and coordinated with small- and medium-sized deliveries transported via the Governors Island public ferry and large deliveries arriving by private barge,” Argento said.
Deliveries arriving via the Governors Island ferry must strictly comply with ferry and slip constraints and the Governors Island Vehicle Policy, which sets maximum vehicle heights, widths, and weights. Deliveries must be coordinated and approved in advance.
“Once the Island Operations team approves it, each delivery receives a specific ferry reservation time slot that delivery teams must follow,” Argento said. “The Governors Island operations staff coordinates the project’s delivery with other ongoing project deliveries on the island.”
Large deliveries arrive at a temporary landing slip that allows vehicles to transfer from the barge onto the southeastern end of the island.
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According to Argento, project geography is another challenge.
“As there are concurrent project activities underway across the island, we hold regular pull planning sessions with all affected subcontractors, communicate constantly with team members, provide adequate supervision and support, conduct routine and detailed QA/QC [quality assurance/quality control] inspections, and maintain strict safety protocols,” he said.
The north end of the island includes a Historic District, and half of the duct bank crosses through it.
“An archaeologist was required to be embedded within the construction crew to monitor the excavation process,” Argento said. “The archaeologist was present to monitor any discoveries of archaeological significance.”
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The project involves excavation and underground utility installation for the new duct banks.
“These are some of the most risk-producing activities in our industry due to unforeseen conditions, potential utility strikes, and other safety hazards,” Argento said.
The team carefully laid out the underground duct bank routing to avoid known utilities whenever possible. Before excavating the area, crews marked known utilities and used ground-penetrating radar to scan each phase. They adjusted the route when they discovered previously unidentified utilities or obstructions. Machine excavation was limited, and much of it was done by hand to reduce the risk of unforeseen utility strikes and obstructions. Archaeological permitting constraints meant the team could not use vacuum trucks. Throughout the process, crews prioritized safety to ensure trenches were properly supported and maintained.
“All phases of the underground duct bank installation occurred within or adjacent to active public spaces,” Argento said. “Prior to construction, the team developed an MPT [Maintenance and Protection of Traffic] plan and safety control measures, which we’ve implemented during construction.”
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The plan accounts for safe pedestrian traffic around the construction site and roadway closures to maintain traffic flow throughout all phases. In addition, at the conclusion of each shift, all open trenches are road-plated and cold-patched to avoid potential tripping hazards and fall exposures.
Specialized equipment is necessary for this project, but much of it has long lead times, requiring coordination with the design team during the preconstruction phase. Argento noted that this was paramount to maintaining the project schedule.
To move the project forward, the team has had to coordinate extensively with New York’s power company, Con Edison (Con Ed).
“We’ve had periodic design and construction reviews by Con Ed to ensure the project design complies with their standards,” Argento said. “The project is reliant on Con Ed’s ability to upgrade their existing infrastructure in Brooklyn to account for the increase in demand for the island.”
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The power company has been involved with the project since the design phase and has held regular planning and coordination meetings to align the project schedule and goals.
“We worked with Con Ed to perform Hi-Pot testing on the existing feeders through the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel to ensure viability before splicing in the new feeder extensions,” Argento said. “Skanska brought in a third-party NETA [InterNational Electrical Testing Association] testing agency to support compliance during the pre-functional and functional testing of the new equipment.”
Argento said Skanska was proud to partner with the Trust for Governors Island “on a project that not only strengthens energy reliability, but also supports innovation, sustainability, and community engagement.”
In addition, the key tenets of the project align with Skanska’s larger company ethos of building what matters and making a difference in the community.
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“The rare opportunity to be a part of the development of a unique NYC asset with unmatched potential is an exciting prospect,” Argento said. “We also have expertise in building unique and logistically challenging projects in New York and throughout the globe.”
The project began in summer 2025 and is currently on schedule for completion in summer 2027. The $84 million project is also on budget.
“Budget certainty starts in preconstruction by conducting constructability reviews, identifying potential risks, identifying long lead items, and developing mitigation strategies,” Argento said. “During construction, pull planning has helped us keep trades properly aligned, our robust QA/QC inspection processes have helped us minimize rework, and frequent, transparent communication has enabled us to manage logistical constraints.”
The new substation is one piece of the broader transformation underway on Governors Island. When complete, the substation will provide additional electrical capacity and improve power reliability across the island, supporting new development and infrastructure as the Trust advances plans for its year-round use.
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- Owner: Trust for Governors Island, New York, New York
- General Contractor: Skanska, New York, New York
- Designer: Plan A Architecture and Design, New York, New York
- Engineers: Robert Silman Associates, New York, New York (structural); Langan Engineering & Environmental Services, Parsippany, New Jersey (civil); Jacob Feinberg Katz & Michaeli Consulting Group, New York, New York (MEP)
- Landscape Architect: Grain Collective, Brooklyn, New York Photos courtesy of Skanska. Rendering courtesy of Plan A.
