NY PUBLIC RESTROOM COSTS $2.3 MILLION

Big Government ^ | September 27, 2012

[SMGFan]

How much should a public restroom cost? If you have to go to the bathroom in Elmhurst park in Queens, New York, you can go in style. A new facility there that features two urinals and one stall for men and three stalls for women cost $2.3 million to build. Robert Holden, who runs the Juniper Park Civic Association, charged: If anybody out there can tell us the taxpayers, that a bathroom like this should be $2.3 million. That’s obscene. It’s just a tremendous waste of space and, especially, money. This may be good for Donald Trump or Mayor Bloomberg, but the taxpayers of New York don’t need this. Anthony Nunziato, president of the Middle Village Maspeth Civic Association, added, “It’s large, but it’s not functional, and that’s the key here, what’s functional?” A spokesperson for the Parks Department offered a reason for the extravagance: because public bathrooms are used so frequently, the city used more durable materials, such as thicker gauge door metal and all-steel sanitary piping.

[hoagy62]

2.3 million? Pssht! That's nothing! Here's a story about a public restroom in Elbe, WA (on the road to Mt. Rainier Natl. Park) that the State of Washington built for 3.2 million...and nothing flushes....it's water-free!

Elbe rest area a welcome addition on road to Mount Rainier

[varyouga]

I’m an engineer and years ago worked as a sub-consultant for a NYC Parks job. Almost as a favor to help a contractor that was in over their head and wanted to get the job over with.

They are actually very very very frugal with spending but in a completely idiotic way. Basically, their rules force them to save $1 today even if it means that they will end up losing $100 over the course of the project.

The rules are intended to reduce corruption and favors to connected firms but instead they get “impossibly low bidder” unqualified firms that give up once they realize how much money they are losing jumping through Parks’ hoops. Eventually you end up with a building that was basically rebuilt several times in pieces by several of these incompetent firms fixing each other mistakes.

Most firms that foolishly win a Parks job never ever bid on them again. I know at least 5 firms that went bankrupt after making a deal with the devil known as “Parks”.