The Port says the Tutor Perini construction contract comes in at 28% below the $248-million budget estimate for the project. In a release, the Port attributes the favorable bid to what it calls the agency's "restructured procurement process" implemented earlier this year, to take advantage of what it calls a "hungry, competitive construction market."

The Port says that the so-called top-down approach allows the subway box bracing to be completed ahead of previous schedules, ensuring public access to the 9/11 Memorial on Sept. 11, 2011. Also at Thursday's meeting, the Port's board authorized a $4.5-million contract to Atlantic Hoist and Scaffolding, LLC to extend the Vesey Street pedestrian bridge over the intersection of Vesey and Washington Streets, 50 feet east of Washington. The bridge will have an elevator, escalator and staircase.

During the WTC redevelopment subcommittee meeting held earlier on Thursday, board members lavished praise on World Trade Center project director Stephen P. Plate, for moving the project along at a more accelerated rate and completing milestones. Later, in response to questions over missed deadlines and reports, including last week's leaked Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center analysis that put completion of the 9/11 memorial two years behind schedule and Tower One four years late, Port Authority executive director Chris Ward said "we are confident in the dates we announced."