San Francisco transit agency approves $147M in change orders for Tutor Perini Central Subway contract

UPDATE: March 10, 2021: Tutor Perini announced this week that the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency board of directors has approved $146.6 million of change orders to the company's contract for the Central Subway project connecting the city's downtown and Chinatown districts. The two modifications — one in the amount of $93.6 million and the other in the amount of $53 million — increase Tutor Perini's contract amount to more than $1.1 billion and extend project completion dates to March 31, 2021, for substantial completion and Sept. 27, 2021, for final completion.

Since the SFMTA awarded the project to Tutor Perini, its contract amount has increased by approximately $303.6 million and is more than two years behind the original substantial completion date of Feb. 10, 2018.

The most recent change order settlement, which covers the impact of more than 1,450 SFMTA change orders to Tutor Perini and its subcontractors, settles all outstanding claims on the project.

Dive Brief:

Tutor Perini on Wednesday reported that its fourth-quarter and year-end 2020 revenue was $1.3 billion and $5.3 billion, up 15% and 20%, respectively, from the same periods in 2019. The company's 2020 income from construction operations was $262 million, a "record high" since 2008 and up from $15 million in 2019.
The company realized double-digit, year-over-year income growth across all three of its segments — civil, up 24% to $2.2 billion; building, up 14% to $2 billion; and specialty, up 22% to $1.1 billion. Tutor Perini also posted $173 million of operating cash for 2020, also a record. As in its third-quarter earnings presentation, collections drove the company's ability to generate cash.
Chairman and CEO Ronald Tutor said the company achieved the "great results" despite negative impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic such as a dearth of manpower, less productivity and work delays driven by project workforces shortages of between 20% to 30%. The pandemic resulted in incremental costs to the company that were estimated in excess of $50 million, but Tutor said the company will seek to recoup much of that amount from its clients.

Dive Insight:

The pandemic also impacted backlog and new awards and caused temporary interruptions in customers' ability to secure funding for their projects, the CEO said. Tutor Perini's backlog at the end of 2020 was $8.3 billion, down 26% from the company's $11.2 billion backlog the year before. Tutor said he expects backlog to decline through the first half of 2021.

Some of the major projects the company has on the books contributing to that number include work on the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Purple Line, the California High-Speed Rail Authority's bullet train (shown above) and the Minneapolis Southwest Light Rail project.

In 2020, the company booked $2.4 billion of new work and adjustments to existing contracts, the CEO said, including approximately:

$732 million for several mass transit projects.
$615 million for building projects.
$286 million for electrical projects in Texas, California and Florida.
$271 million for U.S. government facility projects.

This year the company and/or its subsidiaries plan to bid on major projects including the Purple Line light rail project in Maryland, which Fluor exited last year. The company also expects to rebid the last segment of the Honolulu rail project, which was slated to move forward as a P3 but is now being restructured after city officials said the project costs were too expensive using that delivery method.

Tutor Perini is also expected to be a beneficiary of President Joe Biden's infrastructure plan. which could add up to as much as $2 trillion.