Eastern low bidder for Staten Island Ferry contract

The Staten Island Ferry carries 22 million passengers per year

NOVEMBER 3, 2016—Eastern Shipbuilding Group, Panama City, FL, has been confirmed as the low bidder to build three 4,500-passenger ferries for the New York Department of Transportation’s Staten Island Ferry. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s press office confirmed the news in an e-mail to Marine Log.

A spokesman for Eastern Shipbuilding Group expects the award or notice to proceed with the construction to be signed in the first quarter of 2017.

The contract to build the three ferries is estimated to be around $300 million.

Designed by Seattle-based Elliott Bay Design Group, the Ollis Class ferries will be 320 ft x 70 ft double-end ferries, with EPA Tier 4-compliant EMD engines and Voith Schneider Propellers. The ferries will resemble the much beloved John F. Kennedy, which has been in service between the St. George Terminal in Staten Island and the Whitehall Terminal in Lower Manhattan since 1965. The route is one of the busy, carrying 22 million passengers annually.

The Ollis Class is named in honor of Staff Sgt. Michael Ollis, a native Staten Islander who served in the U.S. Army in Afghanistan and was killed while saving the life of another soldier.  The first of the three new boats will bear his name.

The boats will be delivered to the Staten Island Ferry fleet in 2019 and 2020. When the new boats join the fleet, the John F. Kennedy and S.I. Newhouse and Andrew J. Barberi—commissioned in 1981—will be retired.

News of the Staten Island Ferry success follows on the heels of the U.S. Coast Guard awarding the largest vessel procurement contract in its history to Eastern Shipbuilding Group. Eastern Shipbuilding Group was selected to finalize its design and construct the first series of nine Offshore Patrol Cutters (OPCs) to replace the Medium Endurance Cutters currently in service. The contract is initially for nine vessels with options for two additional vessels. The Coast Guard program goal is to build 25 Offshore Patrol Cutters having a potential total contract value in excess of $10 billion. Initially, Eastern has been awarded the detail design effort with a value of about $110 million. Construction of the first vessel is expected to commence in 2018.