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March 17, 2011
Developer Mulls Pre-Fab Housing at Atlantic Yards
WNYC News Blog
by Cindy Rodriguez
In a written statement, the Building and Construction Trades Council said it's concerned about the safety and quality of modular construction, as well as its impact on jobs and wages.
Forest City said pre-fab technology could allow for more efficient development, and eventually translate into more affordable housing and more union jobs. A spokesman for the developer said it would never build something that isn't safe. The company said while its exploring the modular option, it's pursuing conventional construction as well.
Related coverage...
Field of Schemes, Ratner mulls prefab housing tower alongside Nets arena
The good news: Facing a May 2013 deadline to break ground or else face million of dollars in penalties, Forest City Ratner may finally be building one of the promised apartment buildings that were the main hook for getting approval for its Brooklyn Nets arena project.
The bad news: The developer is considering building a prefabricated 34-story tower, which would be the world's largest, in order to cut costs.
Why is that bad news? Well, the other hook for the project was that it would create jobs, and as the New York Times' Charles Bagli notes, "a carpenter earns $85 an hour in wages and benefits on-site, but only $35 an hour in a factory." (Not to mention that a factory can be built anywhere, which pretty much obviates the job benefits to New York City of the project.)
...Bagli also notes that since no one has ever built a prefab building this tall, no one is sure whether it would hold up to wind shear and seismic forces. Plus, as he doesn't note, a building made of stacked-and-bolted-together boxes — think a pile of shipping containers with windows in them — sounds hideously ugly. But then, we know that Ratner has a tolerance for ugly.
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The New York Times covers Forest City Ratner‘s plan to use prefab building components for a 34-story apartment building at Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn. Engineered by Arup and designed by SHoP, the units should be pretty high-end as far as modular housing goes, but construction workers argue that the prefab approach will mean less jobs.
Posted by eric at March 17, 2011 10:44 PM