January 2019
Walsh Construction completes renovation of CTA Garfield Green Line Station and exceeds hiring goals
CHICAGO – One of Chicago's oldest transit stations has received a complete makeover via the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), Walsh Construction and a diverse local workforce. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and CTA President Dorval Carter joined community members and project leaders to officially mark the completion of renovations at the Garfield Green Line Station in Chicago's Washington Park neighborhood.
The $25 million project rehabilitated and reconfigured the station, operation station house and the historic station house, which dates back to the Columbian Exposition of 1892. The station features elevator and escalator improvements, new cladding on the elevator towers, a tactile edge and canopy structure at platform level, two new exit-only stairs from platform to street level, new communications systems, enhanced lighting and signage throughout the station and new landscaping. The station also features mosaic tiling and art work from local artists Nick Cave and Bob Faust.
Walsh worked with 23 disadvantaged business enterprises (DBE) and collaborated with multiple trade associations, including the Chicago Urban League, Black Contractors United, Hispanic American Construction Industry Association, the Federation of Women Contractors and the CTA to solicit bids from local minority companies.
"We worked side-by-side with various community stakeholders, such as the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership and Northside & Mid-South American Job Centers, to exceed our workforce goals for this project in nearly all hiring categories," said Stephen Specht, project manager at Walsh Construction.
The Garfield Station project achieved 63% minority hiring, far exceeding the 19.6% hiring goal. Along with 23 apprentices from six trades, the project also achieved 21% neighborhood footprint hiring, compared to the project goal of 7.5%.
“Walsh brought me on board to work on the Garfield Station, and this project means something to me,” said Jeffrey Lane, a six-year laborer. “This is a neighborhood that I reside in with my family, a neighborhood that I am currently raising my family in, and every time we ride past or take the Green Line at the Garfield Station, I can brag and say I was a part of this project.”
“Everything I have, I started from the ground up,” says Richard Ates, founder of REA Masonry, LLC – a DBE firm who recently graduated from CTA’s Green Line Small Business Initiative. “I’m an only child raised by a single mother in Englewood. I started laying bricks when I was 18 years old and never imagined this. The trades saved my life.” REA successfully completed a contract on the Garfield Station project, and was recently awarded a substantially larger opportunity at the redevelopment of the old Cook County Hospital building, where Walsh is serving as general contractor.
“My father was in the trades and worked for the city of Chicago for 30 years,” said Curmiller Hayes, a WIOA journeyman painter working for Vision Painting – a DBE firm. “He was able to take care of the family and be a great role model – where alot of kids in the neighborhood did not have father figures.”
The Green Line Garfield Station is the latest CTA project completed by Walsh Construction. Walsh Construction is currently renovating the Belmont Blue Line and the Jefferson Park Transit Center, and the firm has also been selected as part of the joint venture to deliver Phase One of the $2.5 billion Red Purple Modernization (RPM) project.