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December 12, 2011
New York Real Estate: Housing of the Future?
The Wall Street Journal
by Eliot Brown
Developer Bruce Ratner is finding out that inventing new building techniques isn't cheap.
His company, Forest City Ratner Cos., spent $3.5 million on "research and development costs" for its plan to build housing towers out of pre-made pods at its $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn, according to a filing last week with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The effort is a bid to save money by using modular construction throughout the development, which includes 6,400-apartments. Pods would be built off-site and stacked up at the construction site.
The decision to go ahead with the technique is not finalized—the firm is still in talks with unions—and Forest City says it has also designed the project's first residential building using standard construction methods.
The firm also designed much of the project's arena twice, first with architect Frank Gehry before he was jettisoned to save costs.
NoLandGrab: If by "inventing new building techniques" the Journal means "stealing away the top six employees of a firm actually inventing new building techniques" then, yes, Bruce Ratner is by all means the Thomas Edison of modular construction.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Forest City Ratner spent nearly $3.5 million on research and development costs for its modular housing plan
Well, that's a significant investment, and thus a sign that Ratner is serious about it. Then again, I still think that modular announcement last month was timed, in part, to pressure construction unions, and the first building may not be modular.
Posted by eric at December 12, 2011 10:02 AM