The de Blasio administration plans to unveil major changes to curb the eye-popping cost overruns and delays that have wasted millions of taxpayer dollars on municipal projects, such as a 400-square-foot park bathroom that took eight years to build.

Its target is the Department of Design and Construction, which acts as the city's contractor for most projects (although the $2 million comfort station was not among them). In 2017 the Center for an Urban Future found that the agency's average project took seven years to complete and cost roughly twice per square foot what the private sector spends to build office towers. A separate report from City Councilman Brad Lander showed that nearly half of the department's large projects were severely behind schedule.

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The Department of Design and Construction drafted a report that lays out a path to bring projects in on time and on budget and make dealing with government less of a headache for vendors—which would increase competition and attract more bidders, including minority- and women-owned businesses. Grillo plans to present the findings to the New York Building Congress.

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The new rules, many of which the department hopes to complete by next year, would create a dedicated pot of funding for change orders, a dreaded term in the contracting business that describes project alterations during construction, often after discovering some environmental condition. Change orders can require requesting additional capital and bring a project to a standstill.