Here it is!
This little building
is a $2 million dollar bathroom
$2 million dollars?
I had to check it out.
I was expecting gold plated fixtures.
It's just a toilet, a couple urinals, 2 sinks.
$2 million dollars?
Do the people who use the park know what
taxpayers paid for their bathroom?
What do you think this cost?
A couple thousand.
$70,000?
Approximately $100,000 maybe
They spent $2 million dollars
For this?
Unbelievable.
Wow
Wow
You could buy a nice house here for $2 million dollars.
For that price, yeah, you could buy a big house here
You can!
This nearby house was advertised
for much less.
It has 6 bedrooms!
In the millions, for this?
This is ridiculous.
Where’s the money go?
Good question.
Everything costs more
when government builds it.
Washington, D.C.'s Visitor Center was supposed to cost
$265 million,
it ended up costing $621 million.
The Veterans Affairs medical center
near Denver was projected to cost $590 million.
Now they estimate $1.7 billion.
Government spends more
because every decision is tied up in endless rules.
Minority outreach.
Wheelchair access.
Zoning rules.
And much more.
Your department puts out a statement
current estimate to build a new bathroom
is 3 million dollars
It is now approaching in some cases
going over 3 million.
Mitchell Silver is New York's Parks Commissioner.
This is the most expensive market
in the world.
So $2 million was a good deal here?
$2million was a good deal.
We built these comfort stations to last.
But you can buy whole houses
in that neighborhood
for less than what you spent on this bathroom
I hear that point often
and If you look at the material we use
compared to a home
these are very, very durable material.
That’s nice.
But this bathroom is made of durable materials too.
It’s so beautiful
that a newspaper said it might be the fanciest in New York.
Yet it cost
one fifth as much as much.
Why?
Well, it's in nearby Bryant Park,
and Bryant Park is privately managed.
Bryant Park built one
with just as many sinks and toilets for
a fifth the price
Bryant Park did a renovation.
When we build our comfort stations
we do it from the ground up.
But why?
Why’d they knock down the old one down?
It just looks like the same thing.
Commissioner Silver says this has to be especially
sturdy, because...
We’re going to expect
thousands, if not hundreds of thousands,
of visitors
in that facility
over its life cycle.
But privately run Bryant Park gets more use.
No comparison.
It's so busy people wait in line to get in.
Yet another reason government work costs more
is that government pays more.
We pay prevailing wage.
Prevailing wage?
Prevailing wage.
Union wage.
This is a city that does believe strongly in labor
and they want to make sure that people
get paid prevailing wage.
Prevailing wage turns out to mean union wages.
Sometimes more than 100 dollars an hour.
That makes everything cost more.
And when we watched
the workers didn’t seem to work very hard.
The final reason this so much
is that it took years to build it.
It took less time
to build the Empire state building.
We’ve now saved 5 months
out of what used to be
4 years, 5 years for a project.
now doing them 3 years, in some cases under.
So we shaved 5 years off.
Whoop dee do. So it’s 5 years, 4 ½ years?
That’s still terrible
We’re actually 3 years and now we just finished
one of our projects in under 3 years.
Why does it take you 3 years to build a bathroom?
We have a process that includes design,
procurement
and construction.
But so does the private sector
Ours because it’s a public project
we believe very strongly in engaging the public,
“Engaging the public” means things like
the
city planning department’s
“uniform land use review procedure."
Try doing something quickly
while following these rules.
Clearly the private sector does not have to go through the same process.
And this is a good thing, the public process?
All these meetings?
Oh yes it’s a good thing.
That's a ridiculous amount of money.
One little building
$2 million dollars
That’s government at work.
