New York Capitol delay costs $11,000, state won't explain

timesunion.com · Timothy Fanning · September 7, 2026

# New York Capitol delay costs $11,000, state won't explain

Author: Timothy Fanning Published: 2026-09-07T10:00:10+00:00 Source: timesunion.com (timesunion.com) Language: en

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New York Capitol delay costs $11,000, state won't explain

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New York// New York Government

# Citing unclear 'danger,' NY officials mum on details of $72M staircase project

## New York paid nearly $11,000 for an eight-day delay in the Capitol renovation, but officials cite security issues and won’t say what caused it

By Timothy Fanning, Staff WriterSep 7, 2026

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The state Office of General Service’s written agreement amending the original contract identifies the issue as a delay involving an excavation at Executive Drive, which is on the Capitol’s east side overlooking the Hudson River.

Will Waldron/Times Union

ALBANY – New York paid nearly $11,000 for a brief excavation delay related to renovations on the mammoth eastern entrance to the New York Capitol.

Citing vague security and safety reasons, the state won’t explain the cause of the delay or voluntarily release an unredacted copy of state records that would offer clarity.

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The Capitol is undergoing a nearly five-year, $72 million project to restore major structural issues that have plagued the granite 77-step staircase for its 150-year history. The work began last summer and stretches around almost the entire Capitol. It includes renovations on the north and south promenades, executive drive and the east portico.

In early May, the Times Union requested copies of the original contract with Massachusetts-based Louis C. Allegrone, Inc., and a change order made to the document.

The state comptroller’s office, which must review contracts over a certain amount, released a heavily redacted version of the more than 1,500-page contract in late August, more than three months later. The office blacked out significant portions of text, as well as whole pages near the end of the contract.

In response to the newspaper’s records request, the office cited an exemption under the Freedom of Information Law they said allowed them to withhold information which, if disclosed, “could endanger the life or safety of any person” or impede the ability of the state to safeguard information technology assets.

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The state Office of General Service’s written agreement amending the original contract identifies the issue — which appears to have occurred last August, soon after construction began — as a delay involving an excavation at Executive Drive. That's on the Capitol’s east side overlooking the Hudson River.

The specific justification is blacked out; and the visible text only says the redacted issue “caused a delay in excavation.”

The eight-day delay required Allegrone and Rensselaer County-based Rifenburg Contracting to demobilize and later remobilize excavation equipment, including excavators, a skid steer, a compactor and a hydraulic hammer, the document notes.

The project likely won’t be completed until June 2029.

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Restoration work on the Capitol’s Eastern Approach staircase is seen on Sept. 3. The project began last summer and is in the removals phase and cataloging each piece of stone.

Will Waldron/Times Union

Jennifer Freeman, a spokeswoman for the state comptroller’s office, reiterated their reasoning for the denial and declined to release an unredacted version of the contract. Freeman said the newspaper can appeal the redaction.

“We do encourage that you go directly to the agency to ask for more specifics,” Freeman said. “But the office of the state comptroller is in fact redacting it out of caution.”

During an interview last week with state Office of General Services Commissioner Jeannette Moy about the unrelated Empire State Plaza’s planned renovations, a Times Union reporter asked her about the excavation delay on the Capitol steps.

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Moy, who has given multiple interviews with other news outlets about the staircase project, declined to answer the question and a spokesman referred the newspaper to a pending written response they were providing.

The Times Union then asked generally about the Capitol steps renovation progress and was again rebuffed because the question, the spokesman said, wasn’t related to the topic of the interview.

In its written statement, the Office of General Services did not provide answers to questions about the delay or other inquiries about the contract or renovation progress. The agency instead referred those questions to the comptroller’s office.

The agency said the amended contract “involved standard infrastructure security and site safety notifications.”

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The project includes a post renovation of the East Capitol Park.

Will Waldron/Times Union

The statement added: “As a matter of policy and state law, we do not publicly detail specific security measures at state facilities.”

The Times Union filed a request for the contract in May under the state Freedom of Information Law, soon after the cost of the Capitol’s restoration became a flashpoint for Republican lawmakers. They have made the renovation’s $72 million price tag a point of attack on what they view as excessive spending by Democrats who control state government.

They contend that as the state budget balloons and voters complain about how expensive everyday living has become, the cost is too high and a waste of taxpayer money.

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That criticism reached an inflection point when Senate Minority Leader Robert G. Ortt, who represents parts of Niagara County, posted a video on social media in late April criticizing state spending on what he described repeatedly in the video as a 72-step staircase. He asked viewers to envision what the funding could do to improve people’s lives elsewhere in New York.

Ortt said the math works out to about $1 million per step. That estimate doesn’t account for the other work on the Capitol, which involves the promenades on both sides of the Capitol and a portico where the governor enters the building. It also includes a post-construction restoration of East Capitol Park.

The video was shared widely and picked up by the far-right social media account Libs of TikTok, Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and conservative commentator Glenn Beck.

Republican candidates, including U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler, formerly a member of the New York Assembly, and state comptroller candidate Joseph Hernandez, also seized on the high cost of the project.

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Hernandez posted a photo of himself on the Capitol’s interior and ornate Million Dollar Staircase, which he inaccurately described as the staircase under construction. He criticized incumbent Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli for a lack of spending oversight.

New York paid nearly $11,000 for a brief excavation delay for renovations on the mammoth eastern entrance to the New York Capitol. However, it won't say what caused the delay.

Will Waldron/Times Union

The Million Dollar Staircase, which has 444 steps, gets its name from the massive construction cost when it was built during the late 19th century. Hernandez’s post was also shared widely.

Renovations of the Capitol’s eastern approach had been discussed for years and remained blocked off from public access as the staircase has been deteriorating for about a century.

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The staircase is being disassembled and put back together. Crews will photograph or laser scan each piece of light-gray Hallowell granite and assign each of them a number to be cataloged

Read the full story at timesunion.com