February 3, 2012
Forest City doing worse on M/WBE contracting for Atlantic Yards than previously reported: ESD says total is 15.4%, not 22.6%, because some firms aren't certified
Atlantic Yards Report
Forest City Ratner maintains its perfect record of not making good on an promises!
By the state's measure, developer Forest City Ratner has a much lower M/WBE (Minority and Women's Business Enterprises) utilization figure than previously reported, which suggests it's doing less than previously assumed in reaching out to businesses that truly need a boost.
On January 31, I reported that, according to statistics released by Empire State Development (ESD), the state agency overseeing Atlantic Yards, the MBE awards total $91 million (about 16.3% of total purchases), while the WBE awards total $35.1 million (about 6.3% of total purchases).
Thus the combined M/WBE participation is apparently 22.6%, about three-quarters of the way toward the goal of 30% (20% MBE plus 10% WBE), as reflected in the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA).
Revising the numbers
Well, that was true, but I've since learned that the statistics, while released by ESD, were not only prepared by Forest City Ratner--there was no indication on the document--they do not represent the ESD's own analysis of M/WBE figures.
Arana Hankin, Director, Atlantic Yards Project for ESD, explained:
ESD and the Atlantic Yards Project have a certified MWBE utilization contract goal of 20%. Firms must use “best efforts” to meet that goal. If they have not met the goal they must show that they have used their best efforts to retain MWBE firms through outreach and solicitation. ESD has calculated that Forest City has awarded 15.4% to MWBE certified firms to date. ESD does not count the MWBE firms that are not certified. If non-certified firms were included the percentage would increase.
Why wouldn't they be certified? I speculate that either 1) they are/were too fledgling to bother or 2) are too large and prosperous to qualify under the state's newly narrowed rules aimed to exclude M/WBE firms that are very large or led by businesspeople who are so wealthy as to be clearly not disadvantaged.
Whatever the reason, the discrepancy again points out the need for Forest City to not merely self-report but to hire the Independent Compliance Monitor required by the CBA.
NoLandGrab: It's official! CBA now stands for Completely Bulls**t Artifice.
Posted by eric at 1:56 PM
PHOTOS: Atlantic Yards Becomes the Barclays Center
A monthly photo essay documenting the construction of the Barclays Center, which the Brooklyn Nets will soon call home.
Park Slope Patch
by Amy Sara Clark
Month by month, the Barclays Center has grown.
Now covered with fabric, the looming frame of the Brooklyn Nets's future home is beginning to look more like the building it will eventually become.
NoLandGrab: Ironically, the entire project has been swathed in fabrications since the get-go.
Photo: Amy Sara Clark/Patch
Posted by eric at 1:32 PM
February 2, 2012
High-rise housing going modular
This Just In [CNN.com]
This just in? Sure, if by "just in," they mean 11 months ago.
It's an idea that has the potential to revolutionize the construction industry: Use prefabricated modules to build more than 6,000 housing units. If the real estate development firm Forest City Ratner is able to turn the idea into a reality, the firm will build the tallest modular construction building in the world, a 32-story residential tower in Brooklyn, New York.
Click through for more, plus audio, if, like the newshounds at CNN, you missed this story when it broke in March of last year.
Posted by eric at 10:59 AM
February 1, 2012
From the latest Construction Alert: a two-week (at least) closure of the Flatbush Avenue sidewalk west of Dean
Atlantic Yards Report
The latest two-week Atlantic Yards Construction Alert, dated 1/30/12, was distributed yesterday by Empire State Development (after preparation by developer Forest City Ratner).
There's not much dramatic in the alert, just indications of expected progress in various aspects of the project. Most notable to neighbors, perhaps, is this:
An 80’ section of the northern Flatbush Ave. sidewalk west of Dean St. will remain closed during this reporting period while façade installation is underway. This closure is due to agreement between NYCDOB [Department of Buildings] and Hunt [Construction].
Late-shift work
As in the previous alert, there will be double-shift and weekend work at the Long Island Rail Road/Vanderbilt Yard/ Carlton Avenue Bridge:
- All weekdays all locations in the yard: 6:00AM to 11:00PM
- Saturdays as required: 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM
- Sundays and Holidays as required: 8:00AM to 11:00PM
And there may be late shift and overnight shift work at the arena site:
Subject to receipt of permits, a second shift shall be continued throughout this reporting period, from 3 – 11 PM, Monday-Friday only. Also subject to receipt of permits, a third shift may be instituted during this reporting period, from 11 PM – 7 AM, Monday–Friday only.
Posted by eric at 12:22 PM
Did an "emergency situation" really preclude alerting neighbors to overnight work last Saturday? Permit for crane was issued 11 days in advance
Atlantic Yard Report
Let's take another look at the explanation given for the disruptive overnight work beginning last Saturday at the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Sixth Avenue.
Arana Hankin, Director, Atlantic Yards Project, Empire State Development, stated:
The work that was occurring this weekend was being done by the LIRR and had nothing to do with Atlantic Yards. The LIRR is typically very good at notifying us of work that they need to do after hours so that we can inform the community, especially when it relates to Atlantic Yards. But apparently there was an emergency situation in the yard this weekend and they had to get in there very quickly.
Well, maybe it had "nothing to do with Atlantic Yards," but, given that reconfiguration of the LIRR's Vanderbilt Yard is part of the project, it seems like there's some connection, even if not formally part of the Forest City Ratner-led work.
"Emergency situation"?
It's even more doubtful there was an "emergency situation." After all, it's hard to get cranes on short notice.
And, it turns out, the (almost surely) related Department of Transportation permits were issued January 17, eleven days earlier. The permits were for work on Atlantic between Sixth Avenue and the block immediately to the east, South Oxford Street,beginning Saturday, January 28.
Three sequential permits, listed below, were issued the same day.
Given that the announced purpose purpose was "Mobile Crane to Lift Electrical Equipment," and that's what happened, I trust that the permits applied to the work indicated in the photo above. I've asked Hankin for any further explanation, and will update this post if I learn more.
Posted by eric at 12:14 PM
January 31, 2012
Workers at the AY site: 666 people, but perhaps 500 full-time jobs; record of 41% minority hiring exceeds CBA goal of 35% (but women lag)
Atlantic Yards Report
How many workers are at the Atlantic Yards site? Last week emerged two reports, with slightly different numbers, based on slightly different reporting times.
At the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting January 26, Forest City Ratner officials said there were 666 workers at the site, including the arena, transit connection, and railyard. (This number tends to exceed slightly the number reported by Merritt & Harris, the real estate consultant to the arena PILOT Bond Trustee, because the latter does not examine railyard work.)
That total, I later confirmed, represents the total number of individuals employed at the site, not the average number of workers based on a five-day week, since some individuals do not work each day.
Thus the total number of full-time "jobs"--construction jobs are calculated in job-years--is probably some 25% lower, or closer to 500. (As noted below, Empire State Development, the state agency overseeing the project, calculate the average number of workers as about 75% of the total of individuals working.)
This confirms that the numbers Forest City has been reporting at the cabinet meetings represent the number of individuals employed, not full-time jobs. Had Forest City Ratner hired the Independent Compliance Monitor as required by the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA), we might have had clarification earlier.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Minority/women contracting numbers lag 25% behind ambitious CBA "goals" (sometimes billed as "promises"); results better than WTC, other projects
In building the Barclays Center and other Atlantic Yards construction activities, Forest City Ratner is lagging 25% behind its ambitious plan to devote devoting 20% of construction contract dollars to minority-owned business enterprises (MBEs) and 10% to women-owned firms (WBEs).
According to statistics released last week (see below) by Empire State Development (ESD), the state agency overseeing Atlantic Yards, the MBE awards total $91 million (about 16.3% of total purchases), while the WBE awards total $35.1 million (about 6.3% of total purchases). The total, as of the end of 2011, encompasses work back to 2005.
Thus the combined M/WBE participation is 22.6%, about three-quarters of the way toward the what ESD calls the "program requirement of 30% for M/WBE," which also appears as goals--20% and 10%, respectively--in the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA).
The Atlantic Yards web site, as noted in the screenshot at right, presents the figures as certainties.
Posted by eric at 11:15 AM
January 30, 2012
What's going on here? Noisy, chaotic congestion during (unannounced) overnight work at Atlantic and Sixth avenues
Atlantic Yards Report
It was a very busy Saturday night at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Atlantic Avenue, but the street closure, noise, confusion, and heightened danger were not predicted in the latest two-week Atlantic Yards Construction Alert, dated 1/16/12, that was distributed by Empire State Development (after preparation by developer Forest City Ratner).
Though no weekend third shift work was announced, the documentation appears in two postings on Atlantic Yards Watch.
On Saturday afternoon, January 28, trucks dropped off transformers that were later to be lowered into the Vanderbilt Yard. The trucks positioned themselves on the south side of Atlantic, east of Sixth Avenue, thus taking up a lane used as a bus stop.
Uh, normally used as a bus stop.
As noted in the video below, which begins at about 11 pm, the congested traffic led to some untoward consequences.
NoLandGrab: Good practice for what it will be like every time there's an event at the Barclays Center of Brooklyn™.
Posted by eric at 3:20 PM
January 27, 2012
Atlantic Yards Update: No Left Turn on S. Oxford, State Says No to Resident Veto, More
Residents also learn that only 11 percent of apartments in first tower are slated to have two or more bedrooms, compared to the 50 percent promised.
Park Slope Patch
by Amy Sara Clark
Here are a few highlights from yesterday’s meeting of the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet, a group of Ratner, state and elected officials that meets bi-monthly:
No Left Turn for S. Oxford
To the chagrin of anyone trying to get to Fort Greene when driving east on Atlantic, there will be no left turn on S. Oxford Street. However, there will be a left turn onto Carlton (once it re-opens) as well as onto Fort Greene Place.
The Department of Transportation has eliminated that turn lane in favor of a pedestrian “refuge” for those who can’t cross all the lanes in one light.
No Resident Veto Power on Traffic Plans:
Afraid of the traffic onslaught when Barclays Arena opens in the fall, neighborhood groups have asked for more input into the traffic management plan.
In response, the Empire State Development, the state agency overseeing the construction, set up a Transportation Focus Group that will give civic groups and block associations to give early input on the plan directly to ESDC and Ratner officials.
Skeptical that the input would have an impact, at last month’s meeting, the groups asked for veto power on the plan. The ESDC’s Arana Hankin said in December the agency would consider the request, but came back this morning with firm no.
Posted by eric at 11:39 AM
Forest City Ratner: Carlton Avenue Bridge "projected completion" early September; arena on schedule (no mention of report on delays); facade company catching up after temporary closure
Atlantic Yards Report
At yesterday's Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting, held at Borough Hall, Forest City Ratner officials gave several assurances about the timetable for ongoing work--but also left some questions lingering.
Carlton Avenue Bridge
Construction chief Bob Sanna provided an update on the Carlton Avenue Bridge, which is supposed to be reconstructed before the arena opens in September, thus reopening a long-closed connection between Prospect Heights and Fort Greene.
"The bulk excavation is 95% complete, there’s an extensive storm retention system that’s below the tracks. We have two of the three detention tanks now complete," he said. "The north abutment is about 60% complete, we started working on the south abutments."
"We expect to be able to cut over the yard, transfer trains into the newly laid track in February, and cover the trains over in May," he said, "which will allow us to complete the bridge in the early part of September. So the projected completion of the bridge... is the early part of September.”
That doesn't give them a lot of slack, given that the arena is supposed to open September 28, following several pre-opening events. I wrote earlier this month about the possibility of the schedule slipping, and the non-punitive penalties--a stall on starting a new tower--facing Forest City.
Posted by eric at 11:22 AM
First residential tower now delayed until spring or summer; Forest City admits "goal" of including more larger units won't be met; CM James says developer's not meeting commitment
Atlantic Yards Report
Say what you will about creepy Jim Stuckey — he wasn't so nearly prone to ineffectual blathering as Jane Marshall.
For the umpteenth time, Forest City Ratner has pushed back the projected groundbreaking for the first Atlantic Yards residential tower, Building 2 (B2), at the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Dean Street flanking the Barclays Center arena. Now the groundbreaking could be spring, as most recently projected, or summer.
Also, as acknowledged today at the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting, Forest City will not meet its "goal"--purportedly guaranteed by the Community Benefits Agreement and long promoted by the developer--of ensuring that half of the subsidized "affordable housing" would be (in square footage) devoted to larger units of two and three bedrooms.
"It doesn’t dilute our desire to meet the commitment in the future," insisted Forest City executive Jane Marshall at the meeting, held at Borough Hall.
"I understand your desire," responded Council Member Letitia James, skeptically. "I desire to be thin, and young"--the audience chuckled--"but that’s not going to happen. The bottom line is that, there was a commitment, there was a promise. There’s a need in the neighborhood... I would hope you would honor your commitment to the community.”
Forest City Ratner's partner ACORN, or its successor, was supposed to hold the developer to its housing pledge, but Bertha Lewis, who promoted the project because of the pledge, has not yet questioned the commitment.
Click through for Norman Oder's timeline of Forest City's moving Building 2 "goal" posts — which have now been moved 10 times in a little more than two years.
NoLandGrab: Forest City's repeated delaying of housing construction sure helps our confidence in all their other promises — but surely they'll deliver with the Transportation Demand Management plan or the reopening of the Carlton Avenue bridge. Right?
Posted by eric at 11:05 AM
January 25, 2012
From Atlantic Yards Watch: "urina" trash on Pacific Street
Atlantic Yards Report
Eeew.
Neighborhood opposition to the expected cluster of bars and restaurants near the Barclays Center includes concern that inebriated patrons will use the neighborhood as a urinal. That generated unsurprising mocking response from the bravely pseudonymous contributors at NetsDaily.
However, as noted on Atlantic Yards Watch, a version of the "urina" is already in place. Construction workers have been discarding bottles of urine as neighborhood trash for months.
That bottle in the photo below, in a tree bed on Pacific Street between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues? Not apple juice. Maybe it would be less noticeable if the workers didn't park in a residential neighborhood.
.JPG) |
NoLandGrab: Classy, like everything else about this project.
Posted by eric at 12:12 PM
January 19, 2012
In the Real Deal, architecture critic says meh on prefab: "perhaps not better [than Gehry design]... surely not worse"
Atlantic Yards Report
In the Real Deal, critic James Gardner asks Atlantic Yards: Can prefab be fabulous? Will the prefab tower at Atlantic Yards look like real architecture, or will it be Lego-like? and comes down toward the latter.
What he doesn't grapple with is whether, in fact, the first tower, B2 (Building 2, not “Barclays Two,” as he writes) would be prefab. It's still in question.
Posted by eric at 5:53 PM
Local report: still murkiness about reopening of ASI Limited, arena facade contractor; company won't provide info about number of people working
Atlantic Yards Report
While the shell of Bruce Ratner's modular residential building may be ugly, at least it will have a shell.
When Crain's New York Business last week reported that ASI Limited had resumed production of the weathered steel panels for the façade of the Barclays Center, it noted that contractor Hunt Construction was "looking for additional companies to make the steel."
That suggested there was lingering doubt, and a report yesterday in the Zionsville Times-Sentinel, Contractor, Ohio bank assume control of ASI, leaves some additional doubt.
While ASI Limited has apparently reopened, thanks to the role of a bonding company, Employment Plus Inc., of Bloomington, is suing ASI "for nearly $838,000 it alleges is owed in salaries for temporary workers," the newspaper reported.
Moreover, the newspaper reported,"the Indiana Department of Workforce Development has still not been contacted by ASI about the number of persons who have gone back to work," despite email and voicemail messages requesting information.
NoLandGrab: Why do we get the feeling there's more to this story than has yet come to light?
Posted by eric at 5:02 PM
Atlantic Yards: Can prefab be fabulous?
Will the prefab tower at Atlantic Yards look like real architecture, or will it be Lego-like?
The Real Deal
by James Gardner
How's this for a back-handed compliment: architecture critic James Gardner calls Bruce Ratner's prefab dream "not worse" than Atlantic Yards's previous Frank Gehry iterations.
The most remarkable thing — perhaps the only remarkable thing — about the recently released plans for a residential high-rise at Brooklyn’s much-debated Atlantic Yards site is not the design itself, but rather the manner in which the project will be built.
Conceived by SHoP Architects for Forest City Ratner, the building will be made up of prefabricated units constructed off-site and then assembled on the premises. The prefab component of construction should allow for considerable savings.
...Aesthetically, the great question surrounding B2 is whether, when completed, it will look like real architecture, or like something that’s just rolled out of one of the recently unveiled 3-D printers.
Will this development make it possible for good architecture to be produced at bargain-basement prices — or will it prove to be the greatest gift of technology to fans of so-called value engineering? Even more than lackluster design, value engineering is the besetting sin of architecture in the five boroughs, and it produces that sinking feeling that corners were cut, and the cheapest materials were used, to save the most money.
...Surely the project revealed by SHoP looks, from the initial renderings, to be far duller and more conventional — in purely formal terms — than what Gehry had proposed. However, Gehry’s project was overrated, for all the usual mid-cult reasons — adulation of fame and the tendency to associate newness with importance — attendant upon the labors of starchitects. And B2, though perhaps not better, is surely not worse.
Posted by eric at 4:52 PM
January 18, 2012
From the latest Construction Alert: continued late-shift work, no mention of problems with the facade
Atlantic Yards Report
The latest two-week Atlantic Yards Construction Alert, dated 1/16/12, was distributed yesterday by Empire State Development (after preparation by developer Forest City Ratner).
Notably, it contains no mention of the temporary shutdown of the arena facade contractor, ASI Limited, or any analysis of how that might affect facade work. It contains the same language as in the previous alert:
Façade Installation
• The façade erector will continue the installation of erection clips and panels on the Flatbush Avenue elevation and along the west elevations during this reporting period. The installation of curtain wall and curtain wall/lattice panels will continue on the Flatbush Avenue elevation during this reporting period. In the interest of public safety, and as approved by the New York City Building Department, pedestrians using the east side sidewalk of Flatbush Avenue next to the arena may be temporarily diverted to across the street by Hunt flagmen during high level work. The façade erector will continue with installation of erection clips along the 6th Avenue elevation this reporting period. Installation of the erection clips will continue on the Dean Street elevation during this reporting period.
• The façade subcontractor will continue to work a second shift as needed throughout this reporting period. Work may be performed on the Flatbush Avenue and 6th Avenue elevations on this shift.
• The installation of façade panels at the street level and at the Upper Concourse levels on Atlantic Avenue has been substantially completed. Contractor will return to install the façade panels at the uppermost elevation and in the area of the material hoist at a later date.
Posted by eric at 11:03 AM
January 13, 2012
Nets top off – quietly
NorthJersey.com
by John Brennan
One of the staples of major sports venue construction is the “topping off” ceremony – almost as much so as the “shovels-and-hard-hats” groundbreaking event that formally kicks off construction. I’ve been to plenty of these in the last decade in this metropolitan area – heck, even dormant Meadowlands Xanadu had a topping off ceremony for its parking garage (back in 2005, when that entertainment and retail project was supposed to open a mere two years later).
But for whatever reason, Forest City Ratner celebrated the Barclays Center’s topping off on Thursday with a mere press release.
The developers of the Nets’ new home – scheduled to open in September – invited 500+ workers instead of the media (usually it’s both) to hear CEO Bruce Ratner tout the progress on an arena that was first pitched by Ratner as a concept in 2003.
While the steel frame of the arena is now topped out, the developers still have lots of work to do (keep in mind that the worst-case scenario is a third year at Newark’s Prudential Center in 2012-13).
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Why no press conference for the topping-out ceremony? Maybe to avoid questions about the schedule
Whatever reason, I suspect, is that they didn't want to answer questions about how the schedule has slipped, with a very tight deadline to finish site work before the first Jay-Z concert in September, and what the plan is to ensure that the exterior cladding, produced by closed-and-reopened ASI Limited, would get done.
Brennan points to a cautionary tale across the river:
The Nets will just have to hope that they don’t run into similar deadline challenges to the Devils when they opened the Prudential Center in 2007. The team had to play its first nine games of the 2007-08 season on the road, and when it did open, many of the upper-level seats were suitable only for the sub-200 pound crowd – a dwindling demographic in the U.S. in recent years. The Devils eventually settled a lawsuit with the seating company for undisclosed terms.
NoLandGrab: Meanwhile, the Nets may have held their own "topping off" ceremony on January 6th, when they beat the Toronto Raptors, 97-85, possibly capping their season win total at two.
Posted by eric at 11:53 AM
Barclays Center Holds 'Topping Out' Ceremony
Event marks the complete installation of 10,400-pounds of structural steel at the site.
Park Slope Patch
by Paul Leonard
Construction at Barclays Center hit a major milestone Thursday with the announced "topping out" of structural steel by developer Forest City Ratner.
Members of Ironworkers Local 361 joined CEO Bruce Ratner at the site to celebrate completion of the installation of 10,400-pounds of structural steel, which began in November 2010.
At the event, Ratner vowed to complete Barclays Center in eight months—just in time for the future home of the Nets basketball organization's scheduled Sept. 28 opening date.
NoLandGrab: That's gotta be a typo — 10,400 pounds of steel is the equivalent of three full-size sedans.
"Just one of the boys" photo: Nets Basketball
Posted by eric at 12:15 AM
January 10, 2012
After vandalism of street sign, a replacement installed, but no concrete response by NYPD and FCR; ESD would like FCR to put in place new measures
Atlantic Yards Report
Fear not — Atlantic Yards maintains its perfect record of zero accountability.
So, after a driver and construction worker--quite likely working at Atlantic Yards, but that's not confirmed--uprooted a "No Standing" sign on Pacific Street between Sixth and Carlton avenues on January 6, what's the aftermath?
No concrete action--other than the installation of a replacement sign, as noted on Atlantic Yards Watch--and a lot of questions.
First, the New York Police Department, which presumably had the driver's license number, has not issued a statement, and I have not received a response to an inquiry posed yesterday afternoon.
State and FCR response
Are there any measures Empire State Development (ESD) can or will take regarding this, I asked Arana Hankin, Director, Atlantic Yards Project, for ESD, the state agency overseeing the project.
"ESD does not condone this behavior and will request that FCR [Forest City Ratner] take disciplinary action with this particular worker and put in place measures to prevent it from happening again," Hankin responded.
FCR, however, is not there yet, perhaps because the identity of the worker and his association with the project has not been publicly confirmed. Spokesman Joe DePlasco said that "our response to that was that the information and video should be shared with the police."
Posted by eric at 11:41 AM
Barclays Center steel back in the bag
After shutting its doors last month, the company making the weathered steel panels that will sheath Brooklyn's Barclays Center again fires up the production line.
Crain's NY Business
by Theresa Agovino
Fabrication of the weathered steel for the façade of the Barclays Center resumed over the weekend after being halted since late December when the company doing the work shut its doors, according to a spokesman for the arena's developer, Forest City Ratner Cos.
Indiana-based ASI Limited reopened after the arena's contractor, Hunt Construction Group, worked with insurer Ohio Farmers to get the plant working again.
“We are very pleased with how Hunt responded to this situation,” said the Forest City spokesman. “Thanks to their aggressive actions, work has resumed, and we're all the more confident that we will meet our milestones for the arena.”
He added that Hunt is looking for additional companies to make the steel for the 675,000-square-foot arena that will be home to the Brooklyn Nets. Slated to open this fall, in time for the start of the basketball season, the arena is the first building to rise in the vast $4.9 billion, 14-apartment-tower Atlantic Yards project.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Crain's: ASI Limited resumes making steel panels for arena facade, but contractor's still looking for backup
Norman Oder wonders why, if everything's fine, Hunt is looking for additional fabricators.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Company Supplying Barclays Center Out of Business
Meanwhile, nothing slips by The Eagle.
Posted by eric at 11:32 AM
200-Storey Prefab For 100,000 People Can Be Built in 2 Months
Is This for Real?
TreeHugger
by Lloyd Alter
Over the years I have been shown a few wild proposals for giant prefabs and new building systems, and most of the time I have been pretty dubious. There have always been a couple of fundamental problems that got in the way, particularly with modular schemes where entire units are supposed to be plugged into frames.
Recently I questioned a big prefab project at the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, thinking it was too much, too fast, and too cheap considering it was a technology that had never been used to build so high.
But these projects don't come close to what Broad Sustainable Buildings is planning: A 200-storey vertical city that will house 100,000 people. While it isn't scheduled for construction yet, the company appears to be pitching it around the world.
NoLandGrab: If it sounds too good to be true... Bruce Ratner might steal all your senior employees!
Posted by eric at 10:19 AM
January 9, 2012
Atlantic Yards Worker Reprimanded for ‘Amen’ Corner
The Local [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill]
by Minty Grover
 |
A construction worker at the Atlantic Yards project was reprimanded by his bosses last month, fellow employees said, after he painted a seemingly non-controversial bit of Yuletide graffiti on an under-construction kiosk — the word “Amen” in big red block letters.
The holiday greeting — truncated because the worker didn’t have enough paint to write “Merry Christmas,” one worker said — wasn’t visible from the streets around the rising Barclays Center basketball arena, but it was clear to see from the top floor of the neighboring Atlantic Center and Atlantic Terminal malls as well as the Williamsburgh Savings Bank tower across the street.
The extent of the reprimand remains unclear, but the worker was not fired, said construction workers, who wouldn't give their names out of fear of reprisal. The religious graffiti has since been partially covered up with concrete as part of the contruction of the subway entrance at the front of the arena at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues.
A spokesman for Bruce Ratner, whose Forest City Ratner Companies is building the arena as part of its larger Atlantic Yards development, said that the reprimand was deserved.
“It is inappropriate to write anything that is not authorized on a construction site,” said the spokesman, Joe DePlasco.
NoLandGrab: In the overall scheme of things, it seems much less worse than the usual Atlantic Yards construction worker behavior.
Posted by eric at 10:49 AM
January 6, 2012
Caught red-handed on video: Atlantic Yards construction worker uproots newly installed "No Standing" sign on Pacific Street
Atlantic Yards Report
Ok, city and state officials overseeing Atlantic Yards, get a load of this.
There's a No Standing sign on the south side of Pacific Street, between Sixth and Carlton avenues, that doesn't sit well with construction workers looking for convenient parking at the nearby Barclays Center and railyard sites.
They apparently uprooted one sign in mid-December. A week later, its replacement was again uprooted (photo at [right] from Atlantic Yards Watch).
But documentary evidence compiled this morning shows exactly how it's done. Late yesterday afternoon, AY Watch contributor 700PacificW commented on the newly installed sign (photo at right):
Newly installed MTP "red no standing" sign could be destroyed within 1 day of installation again.
That prediction was quite accurate.
This morning's vandalism
As shown in the video posted below, at about 6:15 am today, a construction worker--as noted wearing a hardhat in a photo posted to AY Watch--parked next to the sign.
(Is he definitely working at the Atlantic Yards site? I can't be absolutely certain, but this is where AY site workers seek to park, and hundreds of others workers seen on that block work at the site. A witness saw this worker walking toward the arena site.)
He got out. At 1:10 of the video, he began rocking the sign with his hands, ultimately dislodging it.
At 3:16 of the video, he began moving the sign to the north side of Pacific Street near the MTA's Vanderbilt Yard, as shown in the screen shot at left.
And now he has free parking.
Related coverage...
In tearing down the sign the worker creates 4 or 5 illegal spaces used by Barclays Center construction workers on a regular basis.
Streetsblog, How to Make Your Own Free Parking Near the Atlantic Yards Site
...here’s a variety of parking scofflaw that we’ve never come across before on Streetsblog.
...And you thought placards were the ultimate in free parking entitlement.
Prospect Heights Patch, Video Catches Driver Pulling Down 'No Standing' Sign Across From Atlantic Yards
The videographer caught the man's SUV's license plate number, and we're waiting to hear back from the police about whether they are trying to track him down.
Posted by eric at 1:02 PM
Report Reveals Barclays Center Slightly Behind Schedule
Between September and November, Atlantic Yards construction was behind schedule, and now the completion of the arena has been pushed back a week, to Aug 30.
Park Slope Patch
by Jamie Schuh
While Forest City Ratner doesn’t believe that their steelmaker going out of business will affect the construction time of the Barclays Center, new data shows that construction has been behind schedule for three months, according to Atlantic Yards Report.
AYR says that the completion date of the arena has now been pushed back a week, to August 30, 2012, with site work like landscaping, tree planting and sidewalk installation pushed back a month to September 25, 2012. The blog says that’s just three days before Jay-Z is scheduled to perform an opening night show at the arena.
Posted by eric at 12:41 PM
Forest City avoids the question of how they'll get that exterior steel; local officials in Indiana still baffled by firm's closing
Atlantic Yards Report
So Forest City Ratner yesterday told Crain's New York Business, regarding the closure of steel fabricator ASI Limited, "we don't believe it will affect our construction schedule."
And they told Patch that they don't believe it "will aversely affect the timeline."
Well, that's possible, since the exterior was supposed to be finished by May and presumably there's some flex in the timeline--as long as ASI Limited reopens or (with more difficulty) a new supplier of such custom work can be found.
But that doesn't sound yet like a plan to get that work done. So, until Forest City offers specifics, they don't sound too convincing.
...Surely Forest City Ratner and its allies could muster [new capital for ASI] up in a pinch; a delay in the arena opening threatens an enormous amount of contracted revenue, such as for sponsorships and naming rights.
NoLandGrab: It would be a delicious irony if ASI were able to force Forest City to inject some funds into the company, given the latter's penchant for such hardball tactics as threatening to stop construction of "New York by Gehry" at half its planned height in order to gain union concessions.
Posted by eric at 12:22 PM
FCR's Gilmartin tells Crain's that shutdown of facade fabricator will not cause delays. How will the other steel plates be delivered? They're not saying.
Atlantic Yards Report
The ever-penetrating Crain's New York Business gets Forest City Ratner on the phone to say that, never mind, nothing's wrong. In Barclays Center developer says show will go on, Crain's reports:
The developer of the Barclays Center arena in downtown Brooklyn says that the year-end demise of the company that is fabricating the weathered steel for the arena's distinctive façade will not result in any construction delays. ...“We are concerned when any of our partners has problems, but we don't believe it will affect our construction schedule,” said MaryAnne Gilmartin, executive vice president of Forest City Ratner, referring to steel fabricator ASI Limited having gone out of business. “We can still continue with construction.”
Of course they can still continue with construction. The question is where they get the specially fabricated, pre-weathered steel. It's not an off-the-shelf product. Crain's continues:
Ms. Gilmartin said that a large portion of the weathered steel had already been erected. She couldn't immediately say how much still needed to go up. She added that Forest City is working to insure the steel will continue to be made and to be delivered to the site in a timely fashion, but declined to offer details.
That's plenty vague; they won't say how much work is left, and they won't say how they'll get the steel. Of course it's possible that ASI Limited will reopen, which is likely the best-case scenario, and all will work out. But it's also possible that the construction schedule, which has already slipped, as I reported this morning, could slip more.
Posted by eric at 12:16 PM
Barclays Center developer says show will go on
Despite the recent demise of the company fabricating the weathered-steel skin for the new home of Brooklyn Nets basketball team, the opening is still set for later this year.
Crain's NY Business
by Theresa Agovino
The developer of the Barclays Center arena in downtown Brooklyn says that the year-end demise of the company that is fabricating the weathered steel for the arena's distinctive façade will not result in any construction delays.
...“We are concerned when any of our partners has problems, but we don't believe it will affect our construction schedule,” said MaryAnne Gilmartin, executive vice president of Forest City Ratner, referring to steel fabricator ASI Limited having gone out of business. “We can still continue with construction.”
In a statement, a spokesman for Forest City said the site's construction manager, Hunt, and the bonding company for ASI have developed an action plan. They have already started work on site and have developed several options for on-going fabrication. It didn't specify the options.
Related coverage...
Park Slope Patch, Barclays Center Will 'Open as Scheduled' Despite Steel Snafu: Ratner
According to Atlantic Yards Report, which first broke the story on Tuesday, ASI's apparent demise raised questions as to whether the remaining specialty steel would be delivered and how this might affect Barclays Center's tight construction timeline.
When contacted Thursday, Forest City Ratner spokesman Joe DePlasco dismissed those concerns, saying, "We do not think [ASI's closure] will aversely affect the timeline, and the arena is still planned to open as scheduled."
Curbed, It May Be Naked, But Barclays Will Take Stage
Not even the possibility of a calamitous costume snafu will prevent the new Barclays Center arena in Prospect Heights from making its scheduled debut at the start of the 2012-13 NBA season. Or so says Forest City Ratner, after subcontractor ASI Limited shut its doors and went out of businesses in late December.
...Forest City Ratner says that it has developed several ongoing but unspecified alternatives for the fabrication of the necessary steel panels.
NoLandGrab: We've already suggested this alternative, but we'll repeat it in case MaryAnne Gilmartin missed it the first time around.
Posted by eric at 11:58 AM
January 5, 2012
New report: for three months, arena has been (slightly) behind schedule; completion date for arena nudged back; site work could continue almost to Jay-Z concert date
Atlantic Yards Report
Delays are taking their toll on Atlantic Yards construction, with new data from November indicating--for the first time--that the arena is now behind, and had been slightly behind for three months.
Apparently as a consequence, the substantial completion date of the arena has been pushed back a week to 8/30/12, and the substantial completion date of site work (landscaping, trees, sidewalks, bollards, etc.) pushed back a month to 9/25/12, just three days before Jay-Z is supposed to inaugurate the Barclays Center.
The information comes from the latest Site Observation Report, based on a visit of 11/22/11 and documents made available on 12/20/11, from Merritt & Harris, the real estate consultant to the arena PILOT Bond Trustee.
Cause for worry?
The report, dated 1/4/12, indicates that work seems to be proceeding appropriately. Confoundingly, it does not acknowledge in its text that the arena is behind, as a chart indicates.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Big jump in workers at Atlantic Yards site reported by real estate consultant, but 645 still doesn't match 779 reported by Forest City
As of November, there were 645 workers at the Atlantic Yards arena site and Transit Connection, according latest Site Observation Report, based on a visit of 11/22/11 and documents made available on 12/20/11, from Merritt & Harris, the real estate consultant to the arena PILOT Bond Trustee.
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FCR's numbers
In mid-November, Forest City Ratner told the New York Daily News and Patch that there were 779 workers on site as of November 11.
Why the discrepancy? There surely are dozens of additional workers at the railyard--not covered by Merritt & Harris. But 134? That seems questionable, given observations by site neighbors.
Posted by eric at 12:38 PM
Carlton Avenue/Pacific Street signal light knocked down for at least the third time
Atlantic Yards Watch
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For at least the third time since construction began on Barclays Center, a signal light at Carlton Avenue and Pacific Street has been knocked down. The photo above left is from last week. To the right is a photo of the signal light damaged (but not knocked down) in July. At the bottom of the story is a sequence showing an Atlantic Yards construction delivery truck in July working its way around the corner with the assistance of flaggers.
The signal light is a victim of trucks using Carlton Avenue to enter Pacific Street instead of at Vanderbilt Avenue as is described in the Barclays Center Delivery Truck Rules and Regulations. Carlton Avenue is not a designated truck route, but Atlantic Yards construction trucks often use it. The intersection at Pacific Street is too narrow to provide an adequate turning radius for many longer-length trucks, putting the signal at risk.
Posted by eric at 12:04 PM
January 4, 2012
From the latest Construction Alert: some milestones nudged back; possibility for Atlantic Avenue median work to be done during the day, rather than at night
Atlantic Yards Report
The latest two-week Atlantic Yards Construction Alert, dated 1/2/12, was distributed yesterday by Empire State Development (after preparation by developer Forest City Ratner).
As I noted yesterday, there was no mention of the shutdown of the arena facade contractor, or any prediction of how that might affect facade work.
While there's continued progress in several areas, there are some issues to point out:
- work on raised medians along Atlantic Avenue may be performed during daylight hours, as opposed to previous plans to do so only at night (other night work has been noisy)
- completion of bollard placement has been nudged back from December to January
- some railyard drilling work has been nudged back a month
- some water main work has been nudged back a few weeks
- one Flatbush Avenue sidewalk may be temporarily impassible
Posted by eric at 12:15 PM
Prokhorov and Ratner Preparing to Move Semi-pro Team into Naked Arena
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
One has to wonder, what exactly are Bruce Ratner and Mikahil Prokhorov planning on bringing to Brooklyn. A team that can hardly call itself professional and a naked arena?
The New Jersey Nets, once again, are stinking up the joint and the Barclays Center arena is in jeopardy of being facadeless come projected completion in September 2012 now that the custom manufacterer of the rusty panels has gone belly up.
...Will the arena in Brooklyn be ready when the semi-pro Nets are ready to move? That is now a question worthy of a "no comment" from Forest City Ratner.
Related coverage...
Brownstoner, Barclays Center Facade Maker Goes Out of Business
Posted by eric at 11:56 AM
January 3, 2012
Company fabricating metal arena facade shuts down; work was supposed to extend through May; no comment from Forest City at this time
Atlantic Yards Report
Trouble in Ratnerville? The company that makes the façade panels for The World's Most Infamously Ugly Arena™ has suddenly gone all Nets on us belly-up.
The Whitestown, IN-based company that has been fabricating the weathered steel for the Barclays Center facade unexpectedly went out of business last week, raising questions about whether and when the additional steel needed would be delivered, and how the overall project timetable may be affected.
It's unclear how much of the steel has been fabricated and delivered by ASI Limited, but a considerable amount of facade work remains to be done. Some steel has been delivered to and is stored at the southeast block, Block 1129, as shown in the photo above, taken today by Tracy Collins.
A spokesman for developer Forest City Ratner said "we cannot comment at this time." The Empire State Development (ESD), the state agency overseeing Atlantic Yards, said it was a question for Forest City.
ESD at 5:30 pm today issued a two-week Construction Alert (prepared by Forest City) covering work beginning this week; it indicates continued work on the facade, and does not disclose anything about the facade fabricator.
Work extending through May
The Exterior Skin--which likely includes more than the metalwork--is not supposed to be completed until the "Early Finish" date of 5/13/12, according to a report from Merritt & Harris, construction monitor for the arena bond trustee.
NoLandGrab: Not to worry — we got a lead on some replacement parts.
Related coverage...
NY Observer, Tip-Off Tip Over? Barclays Center Facade Maker Goes Out of Business, Possibly Imperiling Opening Day
Replicating the process elsewhere could present a challenge, especially considering the weathering process was already running behind schedule, according to Mr. Oder. Add in the fact that the arena was scheduled to open in only a matter of months, and solving this problem seems as challenging as the Nets making the playoffs.
NLG: Add in to that fact the fact that the Nets are truly awful, and nobody's going to much care if the arena ever opens.
Posted by eric at 10:54 PM
January 2, 2012
Best of '11: World's Tallest Prefab Building Proposed
Construction Digital
This "best of" list includes yet another example of how the best things about Atlantic Yards (affordable housing, public open space, etc.) are those that have been proposed, but never accomplished.
Prefab buildings are making a comeback in a big way – and in Atlantic Yards, a really big way.
A proposed residential complex towering 32 stories would be the world’s tallest prefab structure in the world upon its completion in 2013. Designed by SHoP and engineered by Arup, the towers would surround the planned site for the new Barclays Center.
Prefab has long been avoided for projects over a few stories because of a lack of cross-bracing supports that allow towers to sustain the high winds and increased loads of vertical building. Designers hope to overcome these limitations with more than 900 steel chassis modules mounted on a system of steel frames, with all the connections on the exterior of the structures.
Posted by steve at 3:39 PM
December 30, 2011
A traffic light down at Carlton Avenue and Pacific Street; trucks regularly ignore the staging area and use Carlton improperly
Atlantic Yards Report
As if saying goodbye to 2011, Atlantic Yards Watch reports that the traffic light on the southwest corner of Carlton Avenue and Pacific Street was knocked down December 28, apparently by one of the several trucks that ignore the Pacific Street staging area and improperly use Carlton Avenue, then make a left.
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Posted by eric at 11:03 AM
December 26, 2011
Building New York: Biggest Real Estate News in 2011
International Business Times
by Roland Li
Here are five of the biggest developments of 2011 and an outlook for the future:
...5. Bold visions for the future
It's one thing to be bullish on New York -- and another to reinvent the skyline.
Danish architect Bjarke Ingels' pyramidal design for the Durst Organization on West 57th Street was one of the most innovative visions for New York, but hardly alone for its boldness. (The project is undergoing land use review.) A Columbia University proposal considered using landfill to create new ground between Lower Manhattan and Governors Island, dubbing the hypothetical neighborhood LoLo. Forest City Ratner is using prefabricated material for its controversial Atlantic Yards project in Downtown Brooklyn -- potentially changing the way buildings are built in the city.
NoLandGrab: Actually, Forest City Ratner is saying that it might use prefabricated material for buildings it may never have the means to build. More like "bold hallucinations for the future."
Posted by eric at 9:52 AM
December 21, 2011
WPIX picks up on noisy generator story, gets response from FCR that it won't happen again
Atlantic Yards Report
You'd think that the myriad of incidents reported on Atlantic Yards Watch would be easy pickings for the press, but too many press outlets suffer from AY fatigue, indifference, or a willingness to follow the announced narrative.
But last night WPIX-TV's Monica Morales followed up on the story of noisy generators in the Vanderbilt Yard and got the same response from developer Forest City Ratner that I got from Empire State Development: it won't happen again, because noise-attenuating blankets will be used.
The lingering question: why weren't they used in the first place?
Related coverage...
WPIX, Brooklyn Generator Uproar
Atlantic Yards Report, ESD says next time noisy generators near residences will use noise attenuating blankets (but why didn't they do so originally?)
So, was there any response to the Atlantic Yards Watch posting that explained how noisy generators at Pacific Street and Carlton Avenue were annoying neighbors.
I quered Arana Hankin, Director, Atlantic Yards Project, for Empire State Development, who responded:
The contractor will not be using the generator again in this area in the near future. The generator was placed on the street because there was no space in the yard where the generator could have been placed to do the necessary work on the south abutment of the bridge. If there is a need to use the generator in this area again, the contactor will be required to use noise attenuating blankets.
Posted by eric at 11:05 AM
Why will railyard floodlights be illuminated at night? Because the policy changed
Atlantic Yards Report
As I wrote yesterday, it seems quite possible that floodlights at the railyard will be illuminated until 11 pm for many months, through next summer.
That leads to scenes (via Atlantic Yards Watch) such as the illumination (at 7 pm) as seen from the Newswalk building on Pacific Street between Sixth and Carlton avenues.
The policy regarding the lights has apparently changed, as Peter Krashes notes on Atlantic Yards Watch, in Nighttime use of railyard floodlights may continue until September 2012.
...A belated Forest City response
About a week after an inquiry via the Community Liaison's voice mail, Community Liaison Brigitte LaBonte answered AY Watch, in part:
The lights are required to provide visibility for the workers, and to ensure safe working conditions. To minimize the impact to those adjacent to the yard, the lights are directed downward and into the Yard, and away from residential buildings.
However, as noted by Krashes:
Residents note that while the lights are directed downward, spillage on the sides of the lights is intense and flows directly into nearby residences. No adjustments to the floodlights redirecting their beams away from residential building have been made to compensate for their increased use.
Posted by eric at 10:58 AM
December 20, 2011
Nighttime use of railyard floodlights may continue until September 2012
Atlantic Yards Watch
And God Bruce Ratner said, Let there be light.
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The floodlights in the Vanderbilt Railyard are being used to extend construction work hours to as late as 11:00 PM many days of the week. In the spring of 2010, LIRR told community members the lights would be used infrequently to enable work that could not be executed in the day while the railyard was operating. At that time there was no mention the lights would be used for construction.
The policy for use of the lights has apparently changed. According to ESDC Project Director Arana Hankin, LIRR and the FCRC contractors working on the Carlton Avenue Bridge are negotiating an agreement for the use of the lights that includes extending construction work hours. The rebuilding of the Carlton Avenue Bridge is not a LIRR project, although its completion is dependent on various elements of railyard construction being finished. The lights are planned to be used until reconstruction of the Carlton Avenue Bridge is complete, which must be prior to the time the arena opens in September 2012. It is unclear to what extent the lights will be used when construction in Vanderbilt Railyard continues with the replacement of the permanent railyard. It is anticipated to be complete in 2016.
Although the work currently taking place only involves a small number of workers in limited locations, all of the lights in the yard are turned on. On Tuesday, December 6 the lights were left on until 3:30 AM without notice to the community.
Click through for photos of how the lights obviate the need for nearby residents' interior lighting (thereby lowering electricity costs!) and how reading is easy any time (saving people's eyesight!).
Posted by eric at 1:22 PM
From Atlantic Yards Watch: Generators at Carlton Avenue and Pacific Street disrupt residents
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder follows up on yesterday's Atlantic Yards Watch post on noisy generators.
Who wants to live near generators, especially when the decibel level gets stratospheric?
...So, is "noisier equipment," as per the memorandum, situated "at locations that are removed from sensitive receptor locations and are shielded from sensitive receptor locations wherever feasible," provided with significant noise shielding?
Apparently not:
Although the Memorandum specifies a "minimum 8 foot height perimeter barrier (constructed of 3/4 thick plywood), with a 16 foot hight barrier (of 3/4" thick plywood) adjacent to sensitive locations, including locations along Pacific Street, Dean Street, and Flatbush Avenue opposite residences," there are no barriers of that description installed in this location. The generators are separated from residences by a chain link fence that does not shield noise.
Yesterday, I contacted the state and city officials in charge of Atlantic Yards construction issues, but didn't hear back yet.
Posted by eric at 12:56 PM
December 19, 2011
From the latest Construction Alert: at railyard, weekday double shifts; railyard flood lights on until 11 pm through Carlton Avenue Bridge replacement (next summer!)
Atlantic Yards Report
The latest two-week Atlantic Yards Construction Alert, dated 12/19/11, was distributed today by Empire State Development (after preparation by developer Forest City Ratner).
Notable is that railyard work will proceed on double shifts during the weekdays along with Saturdays and selected Sundays, all in the name of "overall schedule maintenance," aka "staying on time." The previous alert indicated extra work only on weekends.
Also, it seems quite possible that floodlights at the railyard will be illuminate until 11 pm for many months, through next summer, as "Yard Flood Lights will be turned on at 6am and from dusk to 11:00 pm, during double shifts through the completion of the Carlton Avenue Bridge replacement, as needed."
The bridge is supposed to be finished before the arena opens in August 2012, though no firm schedule has been announced.
Posted by eric at 11:20 PM
Generators at Carlton Avenue and Pacific Street disrupt residents
Atlantic Yards Watch
Generators adjacent to perimeter fencing across from residences, and the absence of barriers to shield the residences from the noise they generate, appear to violate both the spirit and the letter of the Amended Memorandum of Environmental Commitments. The generators are apparently being used to facilitate construction of the Carlton Avenue Bridge.
They are situated directly across the street from residences on the north sidewalk of Pacific Street at the location of the Carlton Avenue Bridge. They are in a highly visible location close to the construction offices and along the walking route between the construction offices and the arena construction site.
...The Memorandum states that contractors will situate "noisier equipment, such as generators, cranes, tractor trailers, concrete pumps, concrete trucks and dump trucks at locations that are removed from sensitive receptor locations and are shielded from sensitive receptor locations wherever feasible." If not feasible, another step contractors should utilize when practicable are "noise curtains and equipment enclosures . . . to provide shielding from significant noise-generating equipment to sensitive receptor locations."
Although the Memorandum specifies a "minimum 8 foot height perimeter barrier (constructed of 3/4 thick plywood), with a 16 foot hight barrier (of 3/4" thick plywood) adjacent to sensitive locations, including locations along Pacific Street, Dean Street, and Flatbush Avenue opposite residences," there are no barriers of that description installed in this location. The generators are separated from residences by a chain link fence that does not shield noise.
NoLandGrab: It's possible it's just a test, intended to simulate the noise of a drunken crowd leaving a Nets game.
Posted by eric at 11:08 PM
December 17, 2011
From Atlantic Yards Watch: the swift destruction of a "No Standing" sign on Pacific Street
Atlantic Yards Report
Looks like Lolita Jackson, the city official now responsible (along with Empire State Development) for coordinating response to Atlantic Yards, has her work cut out for her.
Take one of the latest reports on Atlantic Yards Watch, which documents, as of Thursday, December 15, the swift disappearance of a newly-installed "No Standing" sign on Pacific Street between Sixth and Carlton Avenues, opposite the Vanderbilt Yard. It lasted less than a day.
It's not clear who's responsible, but it is clear that construction workers seemed rather cavalier about the downed sign. And the absence of the sign surely benefits workers who wish to find scarce parking.
Posted by steve at 3:10 PM
December 13, 2011
Barclays Center: Then, Now and In-Between
A photo document of construction at the site from October 2010 to December 2011.
Park Slope Patch
by Paul Leonard
Patch has a collection of photos "documenting the pace of construction at the Barclays Center site from Oct. 2010 to Dec. 2011."
Posted by eric at 11:32 PM
How Invested Is Bruce Ratner In Prefab? Oh, Only a Few Million
NY Observer
by Matt Chaban
Forest City Ratner has spent $3.5 million on research and development for prefab construction, according to The Journal, which dug the number out of its annual report. Since Mr. Ratner began considering prefab apartment towers in 2009, that is more than a million dollars per year. Add to that the lawsuit Forest City helped fight, and this seems like a considerable commitment to this new approach.
This may put to rest claims that the developer was only looking at prefab as a means to break the unions and get a better rate from them on Atlantic Yards. Then again, with 15 towers containing millions of square feet of space, a few million could be but a drop in the bucket if it means bigger labor saving on the future of the site.
Related coverage...
Park Slope Patch, Ratner Still Wants Cheaper Prefab Towers at Atlantic Yards
A five percent savings on the $5 billion project through labor negotiations could mean about $250 million in savings, so even if the developer spends $50 million researching modular construction, Ratner will still be saving money, according to the report.
Posted by eric at 1:21 PM
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 10:02 AM
December 9, 2011
So why were the railyard lights on all night? Because railyard contractors got permission. Why weren't residents given an alert? The state dropped the ball.
Atlantic Yards Report
The state seems to drop the ball a lot when it comes to Atlantic Yards construction oversight.
As documented on Atlantic Yards Watch, high-intensity sodium flood lights were on through the night on Tuesday night, until about 3:25 am, even though the latest Construction Alert said they were supposed to go off at 11 pm. (Before this week, they were supposed to go off at 7 pm.)
What happened? Atlantic Yards Watch observed:
As SOP the ESDC/FCR continues to allow changes to construction work restrictions THEN informs community after the change occurs thus aggravating residents even more by failing to enforce what they publish to whitewash what is actually happening.
And that is exactly what happened.
I checked with Arana Hankin, Director, Atlantic Yards Project for Empire State Development, who responded:
The EIS [Environmental Impact Statement] projected overnight and extended hours of work on the Atlantic Yards sites. The contractors had the appropriate permit to conduct work in the yard overnight. A supplemental construction alert should have been sent out to notify area residents. We will be certain to do so the next time last minute overnight work needs to occur.
Another lingering question, as noted on Atlantic Yards Watch:
Why is the entire rail yard illuminated when they are only working @ the far north east corner of the rail yard?
Posted by eric at 11:21 AM
December 8, 2011
The Observer finds support and skepticism regarding Forest City's modular plans, ignores some lingering questions raised by company's announcement
Atlantic Yards Report
So, does the New York Observer's 12/7/11 article, The Mod Squad: Will Bruce Ratner Transform the Way New York Builds, or Is Prefab Another Project Too Far?, address some of the issues I raised last month, such as:
- the curious timing of Forest City Ratner's modular announcement (to distract from a lawsuit)
- the fact the permit application for the first building doesn't indicate modular
- the possibility the announcement was meant to achieve union concessions (on a conventional building)
- the diminished totals of project wages and tax revenues, with a modular plan
- the amount of time it takes to get a factory up and running
- the seeming disavowal of a pledge to build larger apartments
- Ratner's astounding claim that "existing incentives" don't work for high-rise, union-built affordable housing
No.
That said, the article does gather a reasonable range of opinions on a plan that, given the total of 16 towers (nearly all of them housing), might justify factory start-up costs. And here's a tidbit that explains how the prefab plan was chosen:
Indeed, SHoP, the architects behind the arena and apartment towers, had two separate design teams working on the project at once, walled off from each other. They used different engineers and everything, had a mini architecture competition, and the prefab team came out on top.
Posted by eric at 11:23 AM
The Mod Squad: Will Bruce Ratner Transform the Way New York Builds, or Is Prefab Another Project Too Far?
NY Observer
by Matt Chaban
For nine years now, Bruce Ratner has talked of transforming Brooklyn with his Atlantic Yards project. Bringing professional sports back to the borough, creating a new skyline, “a neighborhood practically from scratch,” as architect Frank Gehry once described it. There would be union jobs and affordable housing for all to enjoy.
As of now, only basketball and a handful of those jobs are guaranteed, all of which took three times as long as originally planned. Mr. Ratner and his partners like to blame the economy and the holdouts who sued to save their property, but the fact remains, they are running well behind schedule, possibly even in violation of previous commitments made to the state when the project was approved.
To catch up, Forest City Ratner has come up with a novel solution for myriad problems with his project: modular construction. More than transforming Brooklyn, Mr. Ratner may transform the way the entire city, even the world, builds. At least that is his hope.
Related coverage...
Brownstoner, Reactions to the Prefab Designs on Atlantic Yards
There’s a lengthy piece in the Observer about Forest City Ratner’s desire to use modular construction for many, if not all, of Atlantic Yards’ planned high rises. The story has quotes from people in the building trades who are supportive of the idea and some who are skeptical that it will actually save the developer a significant amount of money.
...The real unanswered question, though, doesn’t necessarily concern the cost savings but simply the technology: That is, can modular design actually be used for buildings as tall as the planned Atlantic Yards skyscrapers?
Posted by eric at 11:06 AM
December 7, 2011
Latest consultant's report: arena barely on schedule; transit connection still behind (but no graphic); release of revised project schedule indicating "delays" has been pushed back
Atlantic Yards Report
The latest Arena Site Observation Report, dated 12/2/11 and based on a 10/27/11 site visit, indicates that the Barclays Center remains barely on schedule at the halfway point. Meanwhile, the associated transit connection, for a good while two months ahead of schedule, remains behind schedule.
The report, based on cash flow, is prepared by Merritt & Harris, the real estate consultant to the arena PILOT Bond Trustee.
The slowdown likely portends more late night and weekend work to ensure that the arena can achieve substantial completion, as planned, by 8/23/12.
Oddly enough, the report does not contain a graphic--as have previous monthly reports--regarding the progress of the transit connection. That could lead to the conclusion that they don't want to emphasize bad news. (I posed several queries, by email and phone, to Merritt & Harris, but didn't get a response.)
And, as noted below, the release of a revised schedule, once expected to become available in October, has been pushed back.
Posted by eric at 11:53 AM
December 6, 2011
ESD: roofing contractor that poured powder on Pacific Street "was appropriately reprimanded" (but we still don't know what it was)
Atlantic Yards Report
I wrote yesterday about an incident captured on Atlantic Yards Watch, and now I have a partial response.
On Saturday morning (12/3/11) at about 7:30 am, workers for Wolkow Braker Roofing, which has a $4.3 million contract to work on the roof for the Barlcays Center, were spotted taking a white drum from a van, inspecting it, and upending it on Pacific Street, discharging a white powdery substance.
Asking questions
I queried the firm, and Empire State Development (ESD), which oversees Atlantic Yards, as to the nature of the powder (and whether it poses hazards), the appropriate procedure for disposing of such powder, and, if the procedure was improper, what action would be taken.
I got a partial response today from Arana Hankin, Director, Atlantic Yards Project, for ESD, who said "the contractor was appropriately reprimanded yesterday and we don’t expect this to happen again."
That didn't answer my first two questions, or regarding the nature of the reprimanded, so I requested further clarification from Hankin. If and when I get it, I will post an update.
NoLandGrab: What ESDC means is "we don't expect this to happen again" on camera.
Posted by eric at 7:10 PM
From the latest Construction Alert: crane demobilized today; railyard flood lights on until 11 pm for second shift; union dispute re waterproofing of tank at arena
Atlantic Yards Report
The latest two-week Atlantic Yards Construction Alert, dated 12/5/11, was distributed yesterday by Empire State Development (after preparation by developer Forest City Ratner).
Such on-time distribution is rare--usually the document is a day or two late--but it's clear timeliness is important, because there are some significant changes beginning today.
The highlights:
- a large crane at the arena site will be demobilized on a second shift today, 3-11 pm, to be replaced by a smaller one
- the façade subcontractor resumed a second shift yesterday
- waterproofing of a storm water retention tank is suspended because of a union dispute
- railyard flood lights will not only be turned on at 6 am (though there are reports it's earlier) and from dusk to 7:30 pm as previous, but extended to to 11:00 pm, during double shifts
- a Utility contractor working on the corner of Vanderbilt Avenue and Dean Street has moved to a lot closer to Pacific Street "to help mitigate noise impacts to residents"
Posted by eric at 12:04 PM
December 5, 2011
What's going on here? Arena roofing contractors dump white powder on Pacific Street
Atlantic Yards Report
If they were aiming to placate residents with free cocaine, they should know that folks near the Atlantic Yards site aren't having any trouble staying awake.
On Saturday morning at about 7:30 am, workers for Wolkow Braker Roofing, which calls itself "New York's Premier Roofing Company" and has a $4.3 million contract to work on the roof for the Barlcays Center, were spotted doing something very curious on Pacific Street between Sixth and Carlton Avenues.
As noted on Atlantic Yards Watch, at about :46 of the video below (and captured in the screenshot at left), workers for the company took a white drum from a van, inspected it, and upended it on the street, discharging a white powdery substance.
What was it? Was this SOP?
As they were wearing no protective gear, it's likely the substance was not particularly toxic. Still, dumping waste material, of whatever ilk, in the street, is hardly an appropriate procedure.
As asked on Atlantic Yards Watch, "Can the ESDC or FCR please tell the community what unknown white power substance was dumped into the street next to 171 unit residential building from a Barclay’s arena contractor? [Are] there any penalties?"
I reached out to the Empire State Development Corporation and Wolkow Braker, which works on major projects like office buildings, schools, courthouses, and museums. If and when I get any amplification, I'll post an update.
But wait, there's more. Click below to read on.
Posted by eric at 11:17 AM
What's going on here? Atlantic Yards Watch offers more evidence that those operating railyard flood lights turn them on well before announced 6 am start.
Atlantic Yards Report
When author and Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn Advisory Board member Jonathan Safran Foer wrote Everything is Illuminated, this isn't what he had in mind.
According to the last few Atlantic Yards Construction Alerts (e.g., 11/21/11, floodlights at the Vanderbilt yard are supposed to be turned on during the week at 6 am and from dusk to 7:30 p.m., to facilitate work.
As documented on Atlantic Yards Watch, on Wednesday, 11/30/11, the lights were on early, beginning at about 5 am, as indicated in the video below, and at 5:19 am, as indicated in the time stamp on the photo at left.
(Also see article on AY Watch.)
This isn't the first report of such deviation from the schedule.
As I wrote 11/10/11, Atlantic Yards Watch reported that, on the day before, the lights went on at about 4:30 am.
That may be more convenient for those planning work at the site. It's not more convenient for the neighbors. If the reports are true--and I'll see if Empire State Development, charged with overseeing site work, has a comment--shouldn't this be stopped?
And on Sunday
Note that the lights are supposed to be on early during the week to facilitate work.
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However, yesterday, Sunday, when no one was working at the railyard in the early morning, the lights were on by 6:30 am, as noted on Atlantic Yards Watch.
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Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Watch, Entire railyard is illuminated for construction mornings and nights, including outside of scheduled construction hours
Representatives of Dean Street Block Association, 6th Avenue to Vanderbilt raised the use of the lights with LIRR during a meeting in the spring of 2010. The meeting was facilitated by former ESDC Ombudsman Forrest Taylor and took place at his office. The lights had recently been installed and their intensity was a concern to the community. At the meeting LIRR reassured the community representatives the lights would be used only rarely for work that could not be done during the day because of conflict with railyard operation. The use of the lights for railyard or Carlton Avenue Bridge construction was not mentioned as a possibility. At this time in the project's implementation the temporary railyard has been moved to its new location on the east side of the LIRR/MTA property, but has not yet been covered.
Posted by eric at 10:32 AM
What's going on here? Trucks keep idling on Pacific Street rather than wait in staging area
Atlantic Yards Report
OK, the video below, as published on Atlantic Yards Watch, does not represent the most scintillating viewing.
But it provides yet another example of trucks idling on a residential street when they should be in a staging area.
Three dump trucks are filmed at 6:30 am, across the street from a residential building, on the middle of Pacific Street between Sixth and Carlton avenues. The arena site is a half-block away, and the railyard site is around the corner.
In both cases, they're supposed to be staged on Pacific between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues, a formerly public street demapped and turned into a staging area. For example, at 4:43, a construction worker seemingly gives directions to the drivers, two of whom leave at 9:37, and the third at 10:20.
What happened? As noted on AY Watch, either the trucks were released too soon from the staging area, or they avoided it completely, bypassing the truck route and entering Pacific Street from Carlton Avenue.
Why? Because there's too little oversight and/or the drivers and their bosses don't think it matters.
Who loses out? People who are living there.
Posted by eric at 10:21 AM
December 4, 2011
New York State Abdicates Its Responsibility As Ratner Fouls the Air
Atlantic Yards Watch
Equipment spews dust into air over railyard and Atlantic Avenue
Video submitted with an incident report shows dust being blown into the air this morning in the railyard near the work reconstructing the Carlton Avenue Bridge. The video above is one of four submitted.
The incident report accompanying the video reports "this has been going on for the last few days."
The report notes that the dust was so significant the worker using a water hose to suppress dust moved away, stopping his task.
More violations of truck rules and regulations occur, causing air quality impacts
An incident report from November 28th contains two videos showing trucks departing the construction site quickly and stirring up dust into the air. The location of the incidents shown in the video is Pacific Street at Carlton Avenue, where a dispatch is supposed to stop all trucks and only let them advance when the designated entrance is ready to receive them.
Air quality in the community near the site is affected when trucks speed and/or dirt is spread from the work site by the wheels of construction trucks. While coordination of trucks associated with project construction has improved since incident reports and stories posted on AYW began drawing attention to violations of truck rules and NYC law, there has never been wheel washing stations at each exit as promised, and dirt and mud is often tracked from the site. Further, the number of exits/entrances currently in use at the site far exceeds what was anticipated in any environmental analysis.
Inside the construction site trucks are required to obey a 5 mph speed limit. The video shows trucks apparently traveling too fast on the public section of Pacific Street; an area where the 5 mph speed limit may not apply, but where community life must co-exist with the designated route of Atlantic Yards construction delivery trucks.
Posted by steve at 10:50 PM
December 1, 2011
PHOTOS: The Barclays Center Has Risen
A monthly photo essay documenting the construction of the Barclays Center, which the Brooklyn Nets will soon call home.
Park Slope Patch
by Will Yakowicz
Piece by piece and month by month, the Barclays Center has grown. Now, with the frame complete and the glass walls filling in, the arena is looking like the soon-to-be home of the Brooklyn Nets.
The enormous footprint lies within the intersection of Flatbush, Atlantic,
FifthSixth [NLG: Thanks to Bruce Ratner, Fifth Avenue no longer exists northeast of Flatbush] and Fourth avenues.
NoLandGrab: The fire hydrant at left indicates just how close the arena will be to Flatbush Avenue. That shouldn't be a problem, right?
Posted by eric at 10:42 AM
November 28, 2011
So, how much did unions give up to get the Barclays Center going?
Atlantic Yards Report
On Local 157 blogspot, "Where New York City District Council Carpenters Communicate, Connect and Stay Informed!" there's an intriguing comment posted in response to a reposting of Daily News columnist Denis Hamill's valentine to Forest City Ratner's Bob Sanna and the union workers building the arena.
Wrote the anonymous commenter:
How about some free tickets for the men who took the hit on the PLA's [Project Labor Agreements] to make it happen.
Time to have a Trades Night out when the season starts next year. You can go by the Certified Payroll records on file with the CM [Construction Manager] & Project Owner.
C'mon - set it up. Let's see if Ratner appreciates the effort and steps up
Forest City Ratner stopped construction of the Beekman Tower (aka 8 Spruce Street) to negotiate a PLA.
I'm not sure if Forest City simply took advantage of an existing general PLA or negotiated one specifically for the arena. But it sure seems that the developer shaved savings on labor costs.
NoLandGrab: Seeing how giving away unsold seats — of which there are likely to be plenty — won't cost Ratner a dime (and will generate otherwise-foregone concession revenue, to boot), this commenter will surely get his wish.
Posted by eric at 11:51 AM
The Man Who's Building Barclays
NetsDaily
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Bob Sanna is the man in charge of construction at the Barclays Center, a native Brooklynite who's also a City College grad. His resumé is filled with some of the borough's biggest projects but he's most proud of the arena. "There’s a special feeling in having a hand in building a sports and entertainment arena where memories are made and history happens in my native Brooklyn."
Now 60% complete, Barclays will be unique in that the court --aka the "event level"-- will be 25' below street level, something he says was Bruce Ratner's idea after climbing the "endless escalators" of Madison Square Garden.
NoLandGrab: Life's a bitch when you have to stand there while a mechanical stair case carries you to your luxury suite.
Photo: Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment
Posted by eric at 11:17 AM
November 26, 2011
Atlantic Yards Construction Tests Patience of Residents
WNYC
By Janet Babin
Construction continues on the developer Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. Disruption is worse at night, especially for Prospect Heights residents. That’s when work crews spill onto Flatbush Avenue and snarl traffic. The work is testing some residents' patience.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Deconstructing a dubious, uninformed WNYC Atlantic Yards round-up
When I saw the headline on an WNYC article today, Atlantic Yards Construction Tests Patience of Residents, I thought that maybe they'd drawn from the ongoing Atlantic Yards Watch articles and incident reports on the impact of construction, such as the recent Trucks at Atlantic Yards continue to violate site protocols, obstructing a public street.
Nah.
The article is a remarkably uninformed, "View from Nowhere" hodgepodge. It's annotated below.
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Construction continues on the developer Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. Disruption is worse at night, especially for Prospect Heights residents. That’s when work crews spill onto Flatbush Avenue and snarl traffic. The work is testing some residents' patience.
Christine McCoy lives nearby and shops at was the Pathmark supermarket located across the street from Atlantic Yards, which will include Barclays Arena, the new home for the Nets NBA basketball team. “The traffic is crazy. I'm not going to be coming to this Pathmark anymore, because it is not going to make any more sense,” McCoy said.
Actually, the issue is less the crazy traffic by day but the impact of construction on adjacent blocks, as documented by Atlantic Yards Watch.
...
Despite these issues, there are many neighborhood residents who are eager for the project to move forward.
Jacob Parris owns Vinnies, a men's boutique a few blocks away from Atlantic Yards. Parris believes the arena will improve foot traffic to his store. “Right now everybody's driving...you know, they're driving either, past, going into the city, or driving back to Brooklyn,” said Parris. “But now with the stadium there, it'll be something to look, at something to want to walk through,” he said.
Vinnies is next to a couple of dense neighborhoods, so there's a lot of foot traffic on Flatbush Avenue. It's fair to say that retail serving nearby residents is doing fine--as long as they have a long-term lease--but more regional retail, such as Vinnie's, should do better with arena crowds.
Oh, and the Barclays Center featured Vinnies in a spotlight promotional video. Keep that in mind when you hear positive statements about the arena from Junior's, Hooti Couture, BK Terrace, Bergen Comics, all featured in such videos.
Posted by steve at 9:50 PM
Have unions "saved" Bruce yet? Not quite (though not unlikely)
Atlantic Yards Report
I'm a little late on this but I should point out that, while the 11/23/11 Brooklyn Paper article headlined Unions save Bruce with big pay cut to get Yards going sounds like a scoop, it offers no new evidence:
Union workers are coming to Bruce Ratner’s rescue — again! — agreeing to take massive pay cuts to pave the way for the first residential building at Atlantic Yards, a cut-rate, pre-fabricated tower to rise next to the Barclays Center.
...It is unclear how much money will be lost to laborers, but carpenters make as much as $90 an hour in wages and benefits at real construction sites, but only $30 per hour when working inside the kind of factory where Ratner will build the pre-fabricated units.
Many union leaders merely shrugged when asked about the pay cuts, suggesting that if the workers don’t give back, the project might not go ahead, leaving laborers with no work at all.
“We are attempting to reach an agreement … that will work for the building trades,” said Gary LaBarbera, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council.
A labor union source translated LaBarbera for those who don’t speak the language of press releases.
“The unions are going to do what it takes to preserve jobs for their members,” said the source. “The wage scale is ultimately going to be [the deciding factor]. This is going to be a long process.”
Yes, LaBarbera's quote--offered in accompaniment to Forest City Ratner's release of its modular plans--indicate that the unions are prepared to deal with Forest City Ratner.
But it's not clear exactly what will happen. Given that Forest City has not yet established that modular factory it plans, it's quite possible that the unions will compromise on compensation for conventional construction for the first building.
Posted by steve at 9:38 PM
November 25, 2011
With Roof Half Up, a View Inside
NetsDaily
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Billy King, prohibited from talking about players or the lockout or anything much else, has taken to distributing the latest pictures of the Barclays Center, tweeting this image from inside the arena Wednesday, the first since the roof paneling started going up early this month.
The arena should be fully enclosed in January and permanent power from ConEd will be turned out next week. Workers continue to work double and triple shifts and weekends to assure "schedule maintenance", that is completion by late August of next year and a grand opening of September 28 (which also just happens to be Brett Yormark's 45th birthday).
Meanwhile, Bruce Ratner has reached a deal with union leaders to permit him to build the first of 16 modular apartment buildings at Atlantic Yards.
NoLandGrab: If NetsDaily was written by real journalists rather than fans, they'd know that Bruce Ratner has reached no such deal. That conclusory tidbit is from an erroneous Brooklyn Paper report, but NetsDaily has never been long on facts.
Posted by eric at 1:00 PM
UNVEILED> SHOP’S PREFABULOUS ATLANTIC YARDS
Architect's Newspaper Blog
by Branden Klayko
From the twisting titanium forms of Frank Gehry’s Miss Brooklyn to a prefabricated tower of 17 unique modules, the design of Atlantic Yards’ runs the gamut of the architectural spectrum. On November 17, Forest City Ratner and SHoP Architects confirmed rumors that the 22-acre project will house a collection of the world’s tallest prefabricated buildings, beginning with the 32-story B2 tower nestled alongside the Barclay’s Center on Flatbush Avenue and Dean Street.
SHoP chose to break down the visual mass of the building by forming three distinct stacked and set-back volumes in accordance with guidelines set out for the project by the Empire State Development Corporation. Even though the façade will be comprised of hundreds of identical pieces, Chris Sharples, principal and founder at SHoP, told AN that the tower is designed to hide its modularity. “It won’t be obvious that this is a modular building,” he said.
...Once at Atlantic Yards, modules are joined at vertical steel columns on their corners and cross-bracing installed to protect against lateral and seismic forces. Even without a traditional steel frame, Sharples said the Arup-engineered building will be just as strong as any other high-rise.
NoLandGrab: And if it's not, that'll be the ultimate Atlantic Yards bait-and-switch.
Related coverage...
Construction Digital, World's Tallest Prefab Building Proposed
Prefab has long been avoided for projects over a few stories because of a lack of cross-bracing supports that allow towers to sustain the high winds and increased loads of vertical building. Designers hope to overcome these limitations with more than 900 steel chassis modules mounted on a system of steel frames, with all the connections on the exterior of the structures.
NLG: "Hope?!"
Buildipedia, SHoP Architects' Barclays Center comes to Brooklyn
Although the Plaza at the Barclays Center is surrounded on two of three sides by relentless traffic, it is being constructed without the "active edge" walls characteristic of classic piazzas. Nonetheless, it should provide a lasting foreground for the Barclays Center and is sure to be surrounded by Atlantic Yards high-rise neighbors. The Plaza is appropriately sized and intelligently located, allowing it to serve as the site for fun flea and farmer’s markets, street fairs, and the inevitable raucous victory celebrations.
NLG: Raucous celebrations are exactly what the residents living in the adjacent quiet brownstone neighborhoods are hoping for. Not.
Posted by eric at 12:19 PM
November 23, 2011
From the latest Construction Alert: how construction (at the arena site) "progresses as scheduled" but may require extra shifts, and "schedule maintenance" (at the rail yard) requires weekend work
Atlantic Yards Report
There's no major news, as far as I can tell, in the latest two-week Atlantic Yards Construction Alert, dated 11/21/11 and distributed yesterday by Empire State Development (after preparation by developer Forest City Ratner).
But I do want to point out some curious, recurring, "Orwellian, almost" language. The heading regarding the arena site states "Construction at the Arena Site Progresses as Scheduled."
However, the section also mentions that a second shift by the steel erector/stadia installer, while not expected in the next two weeks, will be re-evaluated after this period, while some weekday overtime may be needed and work on Saturdays will continue.
In other worse, "scheduled" progress requires overtime. Similarly, fireproof painting of the structural steel will continue on a second shift.
Also, waterproofing of the interior walls of the east storm water retention tank may be performed on a second shift. The tie-ins for the piping for the storm/sanitary/water services to the arena at 6th & Pacific as well as Dean & Flatbush may require a second and/or third shift, as well as weekend work.
The vertical transportation (aka elevator) contractor is expected to work a second shift during this period.
By contrast, the heading on the section regarding railyard work is "What's Happening in the Rail Yard." It also states:
Due to the need to expedite all of this work for overall schedule maintenance, it will be progressed on Saturdays and (selected Sunday & Holidays).
In other words, "schedule maintenance," like "scheduled" progress, requires overtime.
Posted by eric at 10:25 AM
November 22, 2011
Boxy and Timely
Archinect
by Javier Arbona
Forest City Ratner has released renderings of their SHoP-designed high-rise condos for Atlantic Yards. And let's face it, assuming Ratner doesn't backtrack on the design yet again, the project resembles the same ho-hum, cookie-cutter vertical sprawl of a thousand-and-one other transit-oriented development boondoggles. But this one is even special-er, cus the business and modular-savvy of SHoP seems to have been put to good use for Ratner's union-busting scheme. As L Magazine writes:
The union workers who would be assembling the towers, in various factories, before they're stacked up, would stand to make less the half the hourly wage they could expect if the tower was constructed on-site. Forest City Ratner told the Times, "We are in the process of attempting to reach an agreement that will work for the building trades and Forest City in an effort to create permanent employment," because they are definitely trustworthy when it comes to delivering the jobs they'd long promised the community.
Someone, quick, please break-down what Bruce Ratner makes per-hour, given his $931,584.00 annual income.
NoLandGrab: We're going to wager that the income figure represents only his Forest City Enterprises compensation, and not his Forest City Ratner haul, too.
Related coverage...
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Is Bruce Ratner "Union-busting?"
Is Ratner's dangling of modular construction a "union-busting" ploy to build conventionally on the cheap? That's the charge from Archinect and it is difficult to argue against....
One wonders if the unions will let this happen, after all, Ratner has no choice but to build union.
Posted by eric at 1:29 PM
November 21, 2011
Bruce Ratner, seeker of housing solutions for the city, or cost-cutter?
Atlantic Yards Report
Do what you love, the money will follow, especially if what you love is getting your cronies in government to help you make money.
From Crain's New York Business yesterday, Modular thinking could shape NY's future skyline: Bruce Ratner wants 32-story stack to rise at his Atlantic Yards:
Developer Bruce Ratner thinks he has found a solution to the city's vexing housing shortage and wants to showcase the answer at his massive Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn.
That suggests Ratner's motivation is civic virtue of some kind. It's a business, man.
Cutting costs
How about:
Developer Bruce Ratner was desperate to cut costs at his massive Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn and is taking the risky step of building modular housing, which if it works, might be a solution to the city's vexing housing shortage.
Posted by eric at 11:52 AM
November 20, 2011
Modular thinking could shape NY's future skyline
Crain's New York
Atlantic Yards doesn't have the starchitect, jobs, open space or affordable housing that was promised. Why would anyone believe it when Bruce Ratner says he's going to build modular?
Developer Bruce Ratner thinks he has found a solution to the city's vexing housing shortage and wants to showcase the answer at his massive Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. Forest City Ratner's chief executive wants to construct 15 apartment towers planned for the 22-acre site by using modular construction, claiming it will shave about 20% off the construction costs. He hopes to start assembling and constructing the first test case—a 32-story, 350- unit residential building stacked on the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Dean Street—this spring.
“We could build 20% more housing this way,” Mr. Ratner said. “This could be positive for the city.” Mr. Ratner faces numerous challenges. He must reach a deal with various building trade unions in which they'd agree to the lower labor costs that modular construction promises. His company also still needs to obtain financing.
“At this point, we are pursing the prefabricated model,” Mr. Ratner insisted, adding that Forest City has been working on this approach for more than two years.
Posted by steve at 9:25 PM
As BrooklynSpeaks, AY Watch point to the need for oversight and questions about community impact, New York magazine's critic embraces Forest City's modular plan
Atlantic Yards Report
Well, Forest City Ratner's announcement of its modular construction plan certainly changed the narrative in more than one way. Not only did it deflect attention from the lawsuit filed by workers who said they were promised union cards and construction jobs, it has been embraced by at least one architectural critic who's generally been skeptical of Atlantic Yards.
Davison recognizes that modular housing "has a venerable but erratic pedigree," but suggests that the "great advantage of Atlantic Yards is that it’s huge enough to create its own demand":
Proposing a forest of modular high-rises might seem at first like a bargain hunter’s strategy to get something—anything—built at a troubled site. Unions are already upset at the prospect of shifting traditional construction jobs to lower-paying factory work. In the end, though, the move could help alleviate the city’s perpetual shortage of reasonably priced housing—and bring back some manufacturing as well.
Legitimate points, but lots left out, including the Bruce Ratner's admission of a bait-and-switch, along with an array of apartment sizes skewed smaller than promised.
...
BrooklynSpeaks, in Ratner: Affordable housing won’t work for Atlantic Yards, followed up on developer Bruce Ratner's statement to the Wall Street Journal,
Mr. Ratner said Thursday that the existing incentives for developments where half the units are priced for middle- and low-income tenants "don't work for a high-rise building that's union built."
He added that he had "accepted the fact that we're not going to get more subsidy."BrooklynSpeaks warns that "his statement may set the stage for Forest City Ratner to claim an “Affordable Housing Subsidy Unavailability” under the master development agreement it executed with the Empire State Development Corporation."
That would allow construction to last even longer than 25 years. It's also possible, BrooklynSpeaks allowed, that this is a way to pressure union officials. (It's also part of the modular plan, I'd add.)
BrooklynSpeaks sums up:
First, $200 million of State and City subsidy wasn’t enough for Atlantic Yards. Next, Frank Gehry’s architecture was too expensive for Atlantic Yards. Then, the 10-year project schedule was too short for Atlantic Yards. Eight acres of open space also didn’t work for Atlantic Yards, unless one considers an 1,100-car surface parking lot to be open space. And providing unionized jobs for local residents hasn’t worked for Atlantic Yards, either. Now, the 2,250 units of affordable housing are in greater doubt. It may be the only public promise that FCR will be able to keep is that its arena will create a traffic nightmare in central Brooklyn.
Posted by steve at 12:34 AM
From Atlantic Yards watch: a traffic jam on Pacific Street yesterday, trucks idling, no enforcement
Atlantic Yards Report
Several trucks idling. A truck delivering steel beams stuck for an hour. Several trucks idling on the street behind it. Cars caught in the traffic jam honking.
All this outside the Newswalk, a large residential building on Pacific Street between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues, and adjacent buildings, late yesterday morning, as documented on Atlantic Yards Watch.
All apparently caused by the confluence of a construction worker's car double-parked due to lunch hour alternate side.
Meanwhile, flaggers from the staging area east on Pacific Street, unmindful of the traffic tie-up ahead, continued to let trucks proceed west toward the arena site.
Above left, trucks on Pacific Street just west and east of the Carlton Avenue intersection. East is the private street used as a staging area.
Note that the second truck blocked any other vehicle traveling north on Carlton Avenue to proceed in the only manner possible, which is west on Pacific Street.
The source of the traffic jam
Below, a picture of the rig further west on Pacific Street, stuck. More photos, and video, here. The lingering question: is there any oversight?
Posted by steve at 12:31 AM
November 19, 2011
Building #2 announcement raises questions about construction plans, parking and open space
Atlantic Yards Watch
When will there be promised affordable housing, parking for residential housing and open space? Just because Atlantic Yards is a publicly-subsidized project, it doesn't mean the public is allowed to know the answers.
The New York Times has unveiled pictures of what may be the first residential building to be built at Atlantic Yards. If this design is used for what is called Building #2, the 350-unit building will be the tallest using modular construction in the world.
At the last several District Service Cabinet meetings FCRC Vice Presidents Jane Marshall and Bob Sanna have stated alternate plans using modular and conventional construction are being prepared by FCRC. The Times notes that "the developer ultimately may instead decide to build the first tower conventionally."
According to the Wall Street Journal, FCRC will build using modular techniques if an agreement can be reached with the construction unions. The Journal cites Bruce Ratner that existing incentives for developments where half the units are priced for middle and low income tenants "don't work for a high-rise building that is union-built." Norman Oder in Atlantic Yards Report calls this a "stunning contention" and "astounding admission" because in both 2006 and 2009 the State found plausible the developer's argument it could build the residential development with existing incentives within ten years. Evidence to the contrary was ignored when those findings were made.
Posted by steve at 11:36 PM
How About That Modular Construction?
The proposed use of modular construction on the Atlantic Yards project site is likely a gambit being used to wring concessions from construction unions. But would current modular construction technology permit a 32-story modular building?
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Modular Experts Comment On Ratner Highrise Plan
by Raanan Geberer
James Garrison, assistant adjunct professor at Pratt Institute and principal of Garrison Architects isn't very definite about the the possibility of tall modular buildings.
The use of this technology in Atlantic Yards, he said, would be a challenge because of the building’s height. “Tall buildings have to have significant wind and seismic earthquake loads, and because of that, they tend to have a very strong structure.
Treehugger, World's Tallest Prefab To Be Built in Brooklyn? Fuggedaboutit.
By Lloyd Alter
The title of this article leaves no doubt as to what conclusion has been reached.
The whole thing boggles the mind. Having worked in prefab for a number of years, I can tell you that it's complicated, more than just piling up boxes like Lego. To have changes in builders and architects, intellectual property battles, and fights with unions in a City like New York while trying to build the world's tallest prefab and save time and money? Fuggedaboutit.
Atlantic Yards Report, A statement from Council Member Letitia James on the modular issue
A statement by Council Member Letitia James on Forest City Ratner’s plan to use Prefabricated Steel on Towers at Atlantic Yards project:
“The use of prefabricated steel ‘modular construction’ to build apartment towers as a part of Atlantic Yards is another despicable slight to the community surrounding the project by eliminating more crucial jobs for residents, as well as possibly creating less sound structures in an attempt to cut costs, all while FCRC has received City and State subsidies for the development. Past experience has also shown that designing a ‘bracing system’ for prefabricated steel buildings to protect against storms has been challenging. Bruce Ratner does have an obligation to support the community he serves by providing employment opportunities, as well as to parallel the safety of these buildings with those around the footprint that have weathered more than 100 years.”
It will be interesting to see how the city and state confirm that high-rise construction with modules and a steel frame will work at the planned, experimental height.
And there's a lot more James could say, notably regarding how Ratner could claim that it's impossible to build high-rise affordable apartment buildings with union labor, and how the city seems to be learning how to do deals better.
Posted by steve at 10:34 PM
November 18, 2011
Moving the goalposts for the first Atlantic Yards tower: from "by year end" to "the spring," just in five months
Atlantic Yards Report
The Wall Street Journal reports, in an article headlined Ratner Goes 'Modular' in Brooklyn, dated 11/18/11:
Forest City now says it expects the first of those buildings—a 32-story, 350-apartment tower—to be started in the spring. But the firm hasn't yet secured financing for the building, and that date would be about a year later than the company pledged when it started the arena in early 2010.
Earlier this month, executive Jane Marshall said, "We still believe that, before the end of the year, we will be able to announce which way we’re going and show the the design to the public. That's our goal, consistent with our goal to break ground on B2 early next year.”
Actually, they haven't announced whether the first tower will definitely be modular. And they're no longer planning to break ground "early next year."
Moving the goalposts
This past July, MaryAnne Gilmartin, the developer’s Atlantic Yards point person, said, “We expect to decide on our construction approach in the coming months, and we anticipate a groundbreaking by year end."
So, just in five months, they've moved the groundbreaking from "by year end" to "early next year" to "the spring."
How can we trust the announcement that it would be modular?
Posted by steve at 3:36 PM
November 17, 2011
Forest City releases designs for first residential tower, which would be modular (unless it's not)
Atlantic Yards Report
In an announcement that just might have been timed to deflect attention from the lawsuit filed against Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner and longtime Community Benefits Agreement partner BUILD, the developer today released renderings for the three arena block residential towers, and said they'd be built modular--unless they're not.
Given the lack of certainty about the production plan, and no mention of financing, there's reason to think the press announcement was a strategic move, either to deflect attention or to put pressure on construction unions.
Note the rectilinear nature of most buildings, a far cry from some of original architect Frank Gehry's more irregular renderings.
The Times is given the scoop
The news was broken by the New York Times, in a CityRoom post headlined Design for Tower Unveiled at Atlantic Yards. (There's no mention of the business relationship between the developer and the New York Times Company, partners in building the newspaper's headquarters.)
...The risk
[Times reporter Charles] Bagli points out that modular construction is "largely untested at this height," with the tallest building 25 stores:
The challenge for developers, architects and engineers in building taller modular buildings has been to design an economical bracing system that would protect the structure from wind shear and seismic forces. The developer is working with SHoP Architects, Arup structural engineers and XSite Modular. “If anybody can crack the code,” Mr. Ratner said, “this group can.”
This is the first Times mention of XSite Modular, which can work with Forest City thanks to the settlement of a contentious lawsuit.
The money
The article ends with a mention of discussions between the developer and construction unions. “We are in the process of attempting to reach an agreement that will work for the building trades and Forest City in an effort to create permanent employment,” said Gary LaBarbera, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, said obliquely.
Not only would wages for workers be lower, and the number of workers (likely) decreased, so too would expected tax revenues to the city and state--another project selling point.
NoLandGrab: Norman Oder also points out that the building permit points toward conventional construction, not a prefab process.
Posted by eric at 3:18 PM
November 14, 2011
Traffic barriers and signs on Pacific Street are restored
Atlantic Yards Watch
After nearly six months, missing traffic barriers, parking regulation signs and traffic signs have been restored to Pacific Street between 6th and Carlton Avenues. The "MPT" (Maintenance and Protection of Traffic) measures were the victim of the heavy use of that block by Atlantic Yards related construction trucks. The parking regulation signs were apparently removed to enable illegal construction worker parking.
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The barriers and signs are "temporary" measures implemented for the period the Carlton Avenue Bridge is closed. They are designed to delineate for drivers the current mid-block shift of Pacific Street from a westbound one-way to a two-way between 6th Avenue and the entrance to the LIRR ramp into Vanderbilt Railyards. LIRR vehicles must enter the ramp from the west due to its angle to the street. With the re-opening of the Carlton Avenue Bridge, Pacific Street between 6th Avenue and Carlton Avenue will be returned to a two-way for the full-length of the block.
These measures have had to last longer than anticipated because the Carlton Avenue Bridge, originally anticipated to be closed for two years, will have been closed for four and a half years if it opens on the current schedule. They were restored because a community member raised the issue with NYCDOT. Although NYCDOT approves MPT measures associated with Atlantic Yards, it is FCRC's contractors who install and maintain them.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Atlantic Yards Watch: Finally, NYC DOT restores missing traffic barriers, parking signs to Pacific Street
If there weren't an Atlantic Yards Watch and watchful Atlantic Yards neighbors, how much oversight would there be?
After all, only activism from the latter has restored "missing traffic barriers, parking regulation signs and traffic signs... to Pacific Street between 6th and Carlton Avenues," according to Atlantic Yards Watch.
Who's responsible for the vandalism? Apparently construction workers trying to find convenient parking by breaking the rules.
Posted by eric at 7:45 PM
November 10, 2011
Atlantic Yards Watch: railyard flood lights, supposed to go on at 6 am, yesterday were illuminated 90 minutes earlier
Atlantic Yards Watch
Can we believe the latest Atlantic Yards Construction Alert?
Ummmm, no?
According to the document, to facilitate early start of work, railyard flood lights are supposed to be turned on at 6am. (Sunrise is after 6:30 am.)
However, according to a neighbor who shot photos and video yesterday and posted them on Atlantic Yards Watch, the lights went on at about 4:30 am.
The impact on residents? Those at 700 Pacific Street, face "extreme excess light pollution," blinding at times, according to the neighbor.
On video
Posted by eric at 11:27 AM
November 9, 2011
From the latest Construction Alert: new floodlights at railyard; discussions about how to reduce noise during upcoming Atlantic Avenue work
Atlantic Yards Report
The big news from the latest two-week Atlantic Yards Construction Alert, dated 11/7/11 and distributed yesterday by Empire State Development (after preparation by developer Forest City Ratner) includes:
Work at the railyard will continue on Saturdays and some Sundays, "due to the need to expedite all of this work for overall schedule maintenance" (in other words, to not fall behind)
Now that Daylight Savings Time is over, Yard Flood Lights will be turned at 6am and from dusk to 7:30 pm.
Work will begin late 1st quarter or early 2nd quarter 2012 on the remaining traffic mitigation work, most of which is made up of raised medians along Atlantic Avenue from Flatbush Avenue to Vanderbilt Avenue. Given previous complaints about noise, the parties involved are discussing how to "reduce noise intensity."
Bollard installation is continuing, starting at Flatbush Avenue and Dean Street and is anticipated to be complete around the site perimeter by the middle of December.
I wandered by the site last night and saw a few bollards installed. Based on comments at last Thursday's Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting, it was my understanding, however, that the city Department of Transportation had not yet approved the bollard plan. (I'll update this when I get it clarified.)
NoLandGrab: Silly Norman Oder — Forest City Ratner doesn't need "approvals" to do what it wants.
Posted by eric at 12:05 PM
November 8, 2011
NetsDaily Off-Season Report #30
NetsDaily
With no actual basketball to write about, NetsDaily devotes itself to real estate development, and unearths an interesting modular-construction tidbit from SHoP's Gregg Pasquarelli:
In a little noticed discussion among New York architects on September 12, arena design architect Gregg Pasquarelli raised doubts that it's going to work.
It's horrifying for me to say this but we are working on 2.7 million square feet of affordable housing in the city in five towers....I mean we've got two parallel teams working on this modular project to see if there's a way to build a 40- or 50-story modular building because by keeping it in the factory we can control the cost in a lot better way that we can out in the field. And it's really hard. We've been working on it ...three separate teams of 25 people working day and night on this for a year with developers who say I want a good building supportive developers who say build me the best building you can but here's the budget. It's almost impossible.
Pasquarelli doesn't mention Atlantic Yards, but it does seem that's what he's talking about and what Ratner wants him do. Pasquarelli's SHoP firm has a commission to design at least the first tower and has also been asked to revise the Frank Gehry master plan for Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at 10:27 AM
November 5, 2011
Questions that could have been asked at the AY District Service Cabinet meeting about delays, oversight, responsibility
Atlantic Yards Report
The bi-monthly Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting, most recently held November 3, offers less than 90 minutes for involved agencies, developer Forest City Ratner, and (a few) elected and Community Board officials to address specific and general issues.
And while there some little-promoted positive news--apparently the state, city, and FCR had figured out a way to reduce some jackhammering noise--several issues trailed off into obfuscation or simply were not questioned.
Thus, those overseeing the project still avoid accountability.
And those representing the public simply aren't doing enough.
Yes, Council Member Letitia James does by far the most, but she could drill down more. State Senator Velmanette Montgomery and Council Member Steve Levin did ask a few question--and at least they showed up--but were less effective.
Meanwhile, other officials presumably interested in the project and its impacts--Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries and his colleagues Jim Brennan and Joan Millman; Council Member Brad Lander, state Senator Eric Adams--didn't bother to show up. (Jeffries sent a staffer.)
It's in Jeffries' district, while Brennan oversees the Assembly's Corporations Committee. Sure, he's got other priorities--and probably doesn't want to tangle with all-powerful Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, an Atlantic Yards ally--but shouldn't Brennan want to see exactly how Empire State Development (aka Empire State Development Corporation) operates?
Below, my speculation on how the meeting might have proceeded had the questioners pressed further and had more time. All dialogue in italics is specula
Click through to get an idea of how the publiclly-subsidized Atlantic Yards project continues to avoid public scrutiny.
Posted by steve at 8:40 PM
November 4, 2011
PHOTOS: The Barclays Center Comes Together
A monthly photo essay documenting the construction of the Barclays Center, which the Brooklyn Nets will soon call home.
Park Slope Patch
by Georgia Kral
The Barclays Center looms over the busy Brooklyn intersection of Flatbush, Atlantic, Fifth and even Fourth avenues. lt has been getting bigger and bigger with each month, and it finally looks like an (almost) complete structure.
Photo: Georgia Kral/Patch
Posted by eric at 11:54 AM
FCR still working on first tower, says arena and transit connection on schedule (no acknowledgment of delays), "working very aggressively" on Carlton Avenue Bridge
Atlantic Yards Report
At yesterday's Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting, a bi-monthly meeting of involved agencies and developer Forest City Ratner, representatives of the latter expressed confidence about current construction (without mentioning evidence to the contrary), less certainty about future towers (for which the timetable has shifted), and assurances (despite some doubts from elected officials) that the Carlton Avenue Bridge would get done in time for the arena opening next year.
...“We still believe that, before the end of the year, we will be able to announce which way we’re going and show the the design to the public,” [FCR executive Jane] Marshall said. “That's our goal, consistent with our goal to break ground on B2 early next year.”
Actually, the timetable has been shifting. This past July, MaryAnne Gilmartin, the developer’s Atlantic Yards point person, said, “We expect to decide on our construction approach in the coming months, and we anticipate a groundbreaking by year end."
That wasn't the first shift. A year ago, at the 11/4/10 Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting, Gilmartin said the developer intended to release designs and start construction of B2 in the first quarter of 2011.
The Empire State Development Corporation had, in June 2009, said that the first tower, at least, would not be delayed at all.
NoLandGrab: Atlantic Yards is nothing if not shifty.
Posted by eric at 11:48 AM
November 3, 2011
Latest consultant's report is murky: transit connection delayed, but no explanation offered; not-yet-public document indicates "delays" and "extension of the construction term"; 415 workers on site
Atlantic Yards Report
Hints and statistical evidence that the Atlantic Yards arena and associate infrastructure have slowed somewhat are borne out--though not explicated and perhaps deliberately obscured--in the latest Arena Site Observation Report, dated 11/2/11 and based on a 9/28/11 site visit.
The report, based on cash flow, is prepared by Merritt & Harris, the real estate consultant to the arena PILOT Bond Trustee.
It states that the Barclays Center remains barely on schedule, while the transit connection, for a good while two months ahead of schedule, is now behind schedule.
And some misleading information is provided regarding the latter delay.
Strong hints of delays, but how important?
The report also drops a significant hint that the project is delayed somewhat. For the first time, it mentions a "GMP2"--presumably a revision of the project's Guaranteed Maximum Price--that "includes all delays" and "extension of the construction term." That GMP2 was to be issued October 1, but has not been made public yet.
Posted by eric at 12:26 PM
November 1, 2011
Forest City and the Development of Prefab Plans
Brownstoner
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Atlantic Yards Report’s Norman Oder has an extremely in-depth look at a lawsuit between two companies that Forest City Ratner worked with that sheds light on how the developer has been examining using modular construction at Atlantic Yards. The lawsuit, which was settled in August with confidentiality clauses, was brought by a company called Kullman Buildings Corp. against a firm called XSite Modular. XSite is comprised of several former Kullman employees. The suit alleged that Forest City “was effectively able to circumvent Kullman’s refusal to turn over the ownership rights in this system by the fact that Kullman’s key employees collaborated a plan to work directly with FCRC under the formation of a new rival company.” XSite entered into a contract with Forest City early this year and the developer paid for XSite’s defense. Kullman, which had been working with Forest City for a couple years, had also been up for the contract, which involved helping the developer develop a system for designing and manufacturing heretofore-untested super-tall modular buildings.
Posted by eric at 11:15 AM
October 30, 2011
Guilt over recycling? Consider construction waste from "the 1%"
Atlantic Yards Report
The New York Times today prints comments regarding last Sunday's article on the recycling conundrum facing New Yorkers, headlined Lunch, Landfills and What I Tossed. One comment that made it into print, from union carpenter Gregory A. Butler:
It's fascinating that most of the commenters are focused on hectoring and lecturing the common man and woman to bring their own knives, forks, plates, napkins (and maybe even tables and chairs) from home as a means of reducing waste.
The thing is, a full 50% - 7 million tons out of 14 million tons of waste generated in this city every year - is industrial debris from construction.
Contrary to the article, we're not talking about "dirt" here. We're talking about cutoffs from metal studs, tracks and beams, pieces of scrap sheetrock, cardboard boxes that contained bathtubs, sinks, toilets and stoves, pieces of wood, sawdust, scrap electrical wiring ect ect ect.
There would probably be a lot more waste if construction workers like me didn't scour the jobsite dumpsters for scrap metal that we can sell for a profit.
However, nobody here talks about making Mr Trump, Mr Zuckerman, Mr Silverstein, Mr Walentas, Mr Ratner and the other New York real estate billionaires "reduce, reuse and recycle".
Why not charge them by the pound for all the garbage their construction sites generate?
That makes a lot more sense than putting a regressive garbage tax on the working class and the poor, or lecturing people to bring their own plates to a restaurant!
Let's keep the focus on the 1% and the garbage their businesses generate, rather than wagging our fingers at 99%ers with a plastic bag and a paper cup!
Posted by steve at 11:21 PM
October 27, 2011
From the latest Construction Alert: second shift for steel not expected, crane planned for Flatbush Avenue, pile driving at Carlton Avenue Bridge
Atlantic Yards Report
According to the latest two-week Atlantic Yards Construction Alert (below), dated October 24 and distributed October 25 by Empire State Development (after preparation by developer Forest City Ratner), there are a few notable changes:
- a second shift from the steel erector is not expected in this and next week
- installation of the arena facade will require a crane to occupy part of northbound Flatbush Avenue
- there will be additional pile driving (and, presumably, noise to neighbors) at the Carlton Avenue Bridge.
NoLandGrab: Funny, we thought the Carlton Avenue bridge was supposed to be completely rebuilt and operational at the beginning of 2010.
Posted by eric at 11:52 AM
October 23, 2011
Barclays Center Construction Offset By "Works In Progress" Art Installation
NY1
By Jeanine Ramirez
From the "Putting Lipstick On Pigs" department:
In the midst of the frantically paced construction and the congestion of car and foot traffic, there's a calm escape at the site of the new Barclays Center.
Twenty works by Brooklyn artists are now displayed along Flatbush Avenue and Dean Street, decorating the blue plywood set up along the arena's perimeter.
...
The group also wanted to help bridge the divide the controversial project caused by displacing some neighborhood residents and businesses that sat in the footprint of the arena.
"We knew that it was being built. There wasn't much that we could do about that. And we thought if we could help somehow both the neighborhood accepting this structure and the artists,” said Durso.
NoLandGrab: Exactly how is trying to give cover to the disaster that is Atlantic Yards helpful to the neighborhood?
Posted by steve at 10:33 PM
October 20, 2011
ArtBridge and Atlantic Yards: art spruces up some construction fencing (and we remember some history)
Atlantic Yards Report
It is surely an improvement over dull monolithic construction fence around the Atlantic Yards arena block, and there are some excellent individual pieces of art in the installation Works in Progress, curated by ArtBridge, which has the worthy aim of sprucing up construction sites.
Still, it was a little strange yesterday to be standing on Dean Street listening to the heads of ArtBridge--Founder Rodney Durso and Director Jordana Zeldin--describe their efforts, with the nearest backdrop a fanciful vision of wild animals.
(Photos and set by Tracy Collins. I cropped the photo at [right].)
After all, the north side of Dean Street between Flatbush and Sixth avenues, now the southern border of the arena block, used to be a modest but sturdy Brooklyn street, as Collins's montage shows.
Related coverage...
threecee via flickr, 2011 Artbridge: "Works In Progress"
New York Magazine, Design News
Scaffolding Worth Looking At
The Atlantic Yards construction site is no one’s idea of beautiful, making it an ideal candidate for beautification by ArtBridge, the Chelsea public arts nonprofit dedicated to gussying up the city’s nearly 1 million linear feet of scaffolding. The group is turning roughly 2,500 square feet of perimeter fencing into canvases for twenty Brooklyn-based artists. The works were chosen from nearly 200 submissions by a jury including artist Vik Muniz, Humble Arts Foundation founder Amani Olu, and Brooklyn Museum curator Eugenie Tsai.
Posted by eric at 12:30 PM
October 19, 2011
Atlantic Yards Gets Artsy
Curbed
by Sara Polsky
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ATLANTIC YARDSVILLE—The folks from Artbridge have been installing an art installation, "Works in Progress" on the Atlantic Yards construction fencing for the past two days. Curbed intern Jeremiah Budin headed to Brooklyn to spy on the art going up—check it out in the gallery above. The installation officially opens Thursday.
NoLandGrab: They needed something to hide the pre-rusted arena cladding meant to pay homage to Pittsburgh Brownstone Brooklyn.
Posted by eric at 12:52 PM
October 17, 2011
Latest consultant's report: arena still ahead of schedule (lead nudges ahead), transit connection barely on schedule (and slowing); 422 workers
Atlantic Yards Report
According to the latest Arena Site Observation Report, dated 10/7/11, the Barclays Center arena remains on schedule, having increased pace slightly. By contrast, while the associated transit connection to the Atlantic Avenue subway hub is on schedule, but it's pace has continued to slow slightly.
The estimate, based on cash flow, comes in a report prepared by Merritt & Harris, the real estate consultant to the arena PILOT Bond Trustee. Two months ago, the consultant stated that the transit connection was two months ahead of schedule. There's always a time lag; this latest report is based on a 8/25/11 visit and documents made available 9/25/11.
Reading between the lines
The meaning of the pace reported is not simple to assess, as the consultant's rather opaque. This new report nudges up the arena completion by four days, to 8/23/12, while nudging the transit connection back six days, to 4/1/12. The report does not acknowledge that the latter date represents a revision of the schedule.
The report does not mention of the reason for and impact of extended construction hours--though it seems reasonable to conclude that extended hours are needed to stay on schedule.
Posted by eric at 11:35 AM
October 12, 2011
From the latest Construction Alert: as project progresses, more need for a second shift
Atlantic Yards Report
Here's a conundrum for Empire State Development: if the construction of the Barclays Center of Brooklyn® is really on time, then the Environmental Impact Statement is utterly worthless. But if the EIS isn't utterly worthless, construction of the Barclays Center of Brooklyn® is well behind schedule.
According to the latest two-week Atlantic Yards Construction Alert (below), dated October 10 but distributed yesterday by Empire State Development (after preparation by developer Forest City Ratner), even as progress in several areas is noted, more aspects of the project will go to a second shift.
The text I've excerpted below mainly concerns text in the document that differs from the previous alert, with the new language in bold.
Posted by eric at 12:22 PM
Construction Alert drops a hint: some loud overnight work near Atlantic Yards site is not related to the project
Atlantic Yards Report
There's a brief but intriguing statement in the latest Atlantic Yards Construction Alert, dated 10/10/11 but issued yesterday afternoon:
We have been advised that Verizon has retained MFM Contracting to install new conduit in the Times Plaza area. This work is independent of and unrelated to the Traffic Mitigation work and is not under the control of AYDC [Atlantic Yards Development Company].
Unmentioned is that MFM Contracting is responsible for some of the loud overnight construction work, including in this video, that has plagued residents on Pacific Street near Fourth Avenue.
Does that mean Forest City Ratner is off the hook? Only partly--residents in the area have reported multiple sources of overnight noise (see list of FCR permits below), and other loud overnight work, such as at the Vanderbilt Yard, is clearly connected to the project.
And it's not clear if MFM's work is devoid of any relation to Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at 12:12 PM
October 11, 2011
Revenge of the Megaprojects: Artists Try to Put a Good Face on Brooklyn's Arenafication
Curbed
by Sara Polsky
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The Artbridge scaffolding art project already saved us from the terrifying scaffolding at London Terrace, and now it plans to take on a bigger construction site nightmare: Atlantic Yards. Back in June, the organization solicited entries from Brooklyn-based artists, specifically seeking "visual works that riff on, reveal, or reference the artistic process." Artbridge has chosen 20 artists whose work will cover close to 2,500 square feet of Atlantic Yards construction fencing. The installation, which goes up October 17, is fittingly called "Works in Progress." But when it comes to Atlantic Yards, is any amount of beautification enough?
NoLandGrab: Uh, no?
Posted by eric at 11:07 AM
Map shows after-hours work everywhere; Final EIS made understatement that nighttime work "may also occur once or twice a week;" resident says "regular sleep is impossible")
Atlantic Yards Report
Atlantic Yards Watch has produced an illuminating annotated map that shows how Construction in every location has been allowed by State and City agencies to extend beyond NYC's normal weekday construction hours.
What the FEIS said
According to Chapter 17, p. 11 Construction Impacts, of the Atlantic Yards Final Environmental Statement (FEIS), there was reason to expect some after-hours work:
Extended workdays are expected to occur about 40 percent of the weekdays over the course of construction.
...It is expected that weekend work may be required on one weekend day for approximately 50 percent of the weekends over the course of construction and, in exceptional circumstances, two weekend days would be required.Notably, that section does refer to "evening and night work" but does not predict the frequency.
Later, in the section on Construction Traffic Projections, p. 39, the documents offers some more specificity:
Construction Work Shifts and Activities
Since a certain amount of extended hours, nighttime work, and weekend construction would likely be required, construction activities associated with the typical day shift (7 AM to 3:30 PM) would generate slightly fewer worker and truck trips than those described above. In general, the extended shift, which may occur once or twice a week during critical construction phases and end at approximately 6 PM, would involve no more than 20 percent of the day shift workforce. Nighttime work (3:30 PM to 11 PM), which may also occur once or twice a week during critical construction phases, could require a separate workforce, totaling no more than 10 percent of the number of day shift workers, to perform specific construction activities at the project site.
...(Emphasis added)
Related coverage...
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, No Sleep In Brooklyn (Atlantic Yards Area)
Bruce Ratner is keeping the whole neighborhood up, and New York City and State don't mind at all...
Posted by eric at 10:58 AM
October 10, 2011
Construction in every location has been allowed by State and City agencies to extend beyond NYC's normal weekday construction hours
Atlantic Yards Watch
When it comes to Atlantic Yards construction, the rules are there are no rules.
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Construction hours in New York City generally span the period from 7 am to 6 pm weekdays. One work shift five days a week from 7 am to 3:30 pm is the norm.
Atlantic Yards is different with extended construction hours taking place throughout the project and its vicinity. Even though the developer currently controls a little more than half of the project's prospective 22 acre site, construction still takes place throughout much of the 22 acres. And construction in every location has been allowed by the State and City agencies that oversee the work to extend beyond NYC's normal weekday construction hours.
The map above is indexed to show the locations where permission to conduct work outside of normal construction hours is detailed in the Atlantic Yards Construction Update dated from September 25th to October 9th. The 2006 footprint of the project is highlighted in orange; areas with active construction work are a stronger orange.
Posted by eric at 10:55 PM
An area of Fort Greene is now to receive rodent-proof trash cans
Atlantic Yards Watch
Patch reports the area eligible to receive rodent proof trash cans has been expanded into a portion of Fort Greene. This news follows Council Member James' request at the last District Service Cabinet that the distribution area for cans be expanded into Fort Greene as a response to complaints from community members.
Previously distribution was confined to the area from the east side of 4th Avenue to the east side of Vanderbilt Avenue south of the project site. During the last distribution of cans in August, they were available to residents of buildings with 12 units or less. According to Patch 150 trash cans will be distributed as early as this weekend to residents in the vicinity of South Oxford Street.
One filer of an incident report living in Fort Greene at Fulton Street and South Portland Avenue wrote, "We have never had such a severe rat infestation in the 28 years I've been around."
Posted by eric at 12:00 PM
October 9, 2011
Bordering construction site, indoor noise routinely exceeds 65 decibel threshold
Atlantic Yards Report
As I pointed out October 5, the city's current CEQR [City Environmental Quality Review] Technical Manual, dated 2010, states:
410. IMPACT THRESHOLDS AT RECEPTORSThe selection of incremental values and absolute noise levels should be responsive to the nuisance levels of noise and critical time periods when nuisance levels are most acute. During daytime hours (between 7 AM and 10 PM), nuisance levels for noise are generally considered to be more than 45 dB(A) [decibels] indoors and 70 to 75 dB(A) outdoors. Indoor activities are subject to task interference above this level, and 70 to 75 dB(A) is the level at which speech interference occurs outdoors. Typical construction techniques used in the past (including typical single‐glazed windows) provide a minimum of approximately 20 dB(A) of noise attenuation from outdoor to indoor areas.
In view of these factors and for the purposes of determining a significant impact during daytime hours, it is reasonable to consider 65 dB(A) Leq(1) as an absolute noise level that should not be significantly exceeded.
(Emphases added)
On October 7, inside the Newswalk building opposite the Vanderbilt Yard, as noted on Atlantic Yards Watch, one resident measured 7 am noise at 68 dB, accompanied by dust and smoke.
Posted by steve at 11:14 PM
October 8, 2011
UPDATE: Rat-Proof Trash Cans To Arrive In Fort Greene
Fort Greene Patch
For a few lucky Fort Greene residents dealing with a rise in the rat population—which may or may not be tied to Atlantic Yards construction—help is on its way.
According to Letitia James, D-Brooklyn, 150 heavy-duty rat resident trashcans will be distrubuted for the residents of S. Oxford Homes.
The 141-unit housing development is located a short distance away from the rising Barclays Center project between Atlantic Avenue and Fulton Street.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Patch: Thanks to CM James and Forest City, some in Fort Greene to get rat-proof trash cans
Patch reports that 150 trash cans will be distributed in Fort Greene, thanks to a joint initiative by Council Member Letitia James and Forest City Ratner.
In August, FCR had paid for and distributed numerous cans in a limited area below Atlantic Avenue, assisting residents faced with a plague of rats--exacerbated by Atlantic Yards construction, many believe.
However, many people in Fort Greene have filed complaints with James. At the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet last month, James raised the issue, and Forest City somewhat reluctantly agreed to talk about it.
Patch reports that the trash cans would go to "residents of S. Oxford Homes," which is not a formal name I recognize. Possibly it's Atlantic Commons. But it likely does not cover the full area where people were complaining.
Posted by steve at 9:26 PM
October 7, 2011
The Bustle At Barclays Center
Documenting the construction of the new home of the Brooklyn Nets.
Fort Greene-Clinton Hill Patch
by Patrick Conti
Finally, it appears as though motorists have mostly adapted to the major traffic changes near and around the arena, which went into affect this past summer—though the flow of traffic immediately surrounding Atlantic Yards still seems to be a slow go.
NoLandGrab: It doesn't just seem to be a slow go — it is a slow go.
Posted by eric at 1:04 PM
The art strategy: beautify the construction fence and "riff on, reference, or reveal something about the artistic process"
Atlantic Yards Report
From ArtBridge, announcing work on a 400-foot long stretch of sidewalk shed, from 20 artists (in 19 works):
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About Works In Progress — OPENING OCTOBER 20th
Art-making is a transformative act. Pigment mixed with medium becomes paint, that paint, when applied to canvas becomes “art,” that art, when we see it on gallery walls or in the public realm, alters the world around us.
The construction process can in many ways be seen as a mirror of the artistic one; breaking ground, reconfiguring it, reinterpreting space to make it new.
With this in mind we invite Brooklyn-based artists to submit visual works that riff on, reference, or reveal something about the artistic process for consideration for our latest public installation, ArtBridge: Works in Progress,” to be installed in the heart of Downtown Brooklyn in early Fall of 2011.
What constitutes a “finished” piece? How might a spot of bare canvas peaking through layers of paint reference a work’s beginnings? What kind of work results from careful planning? From spontaneity? These are some of the questions we hope that artists will address through their work.
Maybe another question might be: Is this the heart of Downtown Brooklyn?
NoLandGrab: Maybe it's us, but we have a tendency to feel a smidge of contempt for arts organizations that get in bed with Bruce Ratner, well intentioned, or not.
Posted by eric at 12:41 PM
Brooklyn Paper Blocks Links Re City Rules NOT Requiring That Hi-Decibel Late Night Construction On The Ratner/Prokhorov Arena Be Done At Night
Noticing New York
In an Atlantic Yards Report story we read that the Brooklyn Paper today published an article headlined "Noises on! Barclays Center construction now 24-7-365" that contains the following language, “City rules require that the work be done at night, when traffic is lightest,” leading the reader to infer that city rules are requiring that ALL of the work now being done at night during the now 24/7 schedule must be done at night. That’s not so.
What was more startling however, was reading in the Atlantic Yards Report story that when Atlantic Yards Report’s Norman Oder twice tried to provide corrective comments to the article via the Brooklyn Paper’s “Reader Feedback” feature, his corrections were blocked. (See: Thursday, October 06, 2011, Brooklyn Paper covers after-hours construction but suggests that all of it is required to be done at night. Not so.)
Into the breach we went with a Noticing New York test of the Brooklyn Paper’s correction- censoring block. Here is our comment and our diagnostic of the situation.
Posted by eric at 11:49 AM
October 6, 2011
NetsDaily: "critics" are "claiming" that construction noise bothers them.
Atlantic Yards Report
We're going to start calling these guys NetsDummy. Or NetsFaily. But really, what can one expect when they have feckless fans, rather than actual journalists, doing the writing?
You know who's bothered by Atlantic Yards construction noise. According to NetsDaily, the pseudonymously (and tendentiously) written website that claims to aggregate all Nets-related news, they're "[c]ritics of the arena."
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No, they're not "critics of the arena." They're people who (in the main) have been uninvolved in the Atlantic Yards controversy but just happen to live very close to noisy construction. Which disturbs their sleep. Why? Because the state allows very loud overnight work to go on very near them.
Posted by eric at 9:48 PM
Noises on! Barclays Center construction now 24-7-365
The Brooklyn Paper
by Daniel Bush
Workers will now toil on the Barclays Center around the clock, seven days a week to ensure that the $1-billion arena will be ready for Jay-Z’s grand opening concerts next summer.
Neighbors of the Prospect Heights arena were quick to notice the stepped-up construction schedule, thanks to ear-splitting noise between 10 pm and 6 am on Atlantic, Flatbush and Fourth avenues, and Pacific Street, where roadwork is underway in hopes of reducing traffic to the 19,000-seat arena.
Construction is also going full-blast to repair the shuttered Carlton Avenue bridge, install new sewer lines and prepare the site’s rail yard for a massive upgrade.
As if that weren’t enough, truck deliveries to the site were pushed back to 6 am, and a staging area inside of the Atlantic Yards footprint is active 24 hours per day, according to residents.
...“It’s noisy and loud,” said Milagros Barreto, who lives on Dean Street. “I can hear the work clearly from my house.”
John Carruthers, who lives on Pacific Street, said the noise is keeping him and his 14-year-old daughter up at night.
“She ends up going to sleep late and wakes up tired,” he said. “It’s pissing me off.”
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Brooklyn Paper covers after-hours construction but suggests that all of it is required to be done at night. Not so.
Norman Oder tried to post a comment to the Brooklyn Paper's story, but got denied. Here's part of it.
To say "City rules require that the work be done at night" suggests that Forest City Ratner has not asked for any special permissions. Not so.
There are no requirements, for example, that work be done at night at the arena site, or that deliveries be made earlier. They've speeded up. Asked about 24/7 work, Bruce Ratner said, "We don't want to take any chances."
Posted by eric at 10:08 AM
October 5, 2011
Construction noise inside a nearby apartment building: way off the charts (though not as bad inside a unit); maybe state, FCR officials should check it out
Atlantic Yards Report
WHAT?! WE CAN'T HEAR YOU!
Maybe Arana Hankin, the state official in charge of Atlantic Yards, and Jane Marshall, a Forest City Ratner executive, should take a relatively brief evening walk from their Fort Greene homes to check out the deafening construction noise at the intersection of Fourth Avenue and Pacific Street.
Marshall recently likened the additional stretch of overnight noise to a dentist's appointment that would be over in a month.
But that's not quite right.
It's probably closer to a long-term dentist's visit without any novocaine. After all, one resident of 568 Pacific Street described it as "torture."
At that building on Monday night, inside a hallway, a visitor registered a 94.0 dB reading on a decibel meter, as shown in the photo at right.
That's way, way off the charts.
Measuring impacts
The upper acceptable limit at night, according to the city and state, is 65 dB, which itself is way above the recommended level of 45 dB, as noted below.
But there's no evidence anyone officially involved in Atlantic Yards has tried to monitor this, or to offer promised mitigations (see below). Hence my suggestion above.
As shown in the chart at left, from a New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) guidance on noise, sound becomes intrusive as it approaches 70dB.
It becomes annoying at 80 dB.
At 90 dB, it becomes very annoying, and can cause hearing damage after continuous exposure.
Posted by eric at 12:27 PM
To Prefab or Not to Prefab: Atlantic Yards Design Decision Will Be Made This Year
NY Observer
by Matt Chaban
Prefabricated buildings have not been such a hot topic of conversation since Buckminster Fuller passed away, but that is about all anyone can talk about at Atlantic Yards anymore. On the one hand, it could signal a paradigm shift in how New York City builds, on the other, it goes against many of the employment promises Forest City Ratner made when the project won support from politicians and labor unions. With building plans recently filed, the decision on what to do is getting close. How close? The Observer asked Maryanne Gilmartin exactly that.
...While Ms. Gilmartin could not say when the decision would be made, she did admit, “We’re on the cusp.”
“It’s definitely a 2011 conversation, and one we look forward to having very soon,” she added. That leaves us with 88 days until the big reveal.
NoLandGrab: Their decision definitely probably likely possibly maybe could come any day week month year decade now.
Posted by eric at 11:24 AM
AY Check-In: Residential Build, Rats and Traffic
Brownstoner
Yesterday Community Board 2 sent out a comprehensive update on all things Atlantic Yards. A few things of note: the first residential building, which Forest City Ratner filed permits for in August, is currently known as “B2.” Design is under way, though there’s still no decision on whether it will be built using traditional or modular construction. As the Observer noted yesterday, Forest City says it will have something more to report by the end of the year, and construction is slated to begin shortly after. In response to previous rat complaints near the site, the city Health Department singled out three to four “hot spots” on Dean Street, between Sixth and Carlton avenues. There are also a few problem areas on Fourth Avenue and Pacific Street; the Pacific Branch Library, the Church of the Redeemer, and a catch-basin at that corner.
...Finally, DOT reported on the traffic changes implemented this July and August. Traffic improved on Flatbush but slowed on 3rd and 4th avenues. DOT plans to adjust the signal timing on Fourth Avenue to reduce the jam of vehicles at Atlantic Avenue.
...DOT is also holding a public hearing today, 2:00 pm at 55 Water Street, Room 707, on the revocable consent for the security bollards and other features surrounding the Barclays Center.
Posted by eric at 11:18 AM
Rat Resistant Trash Cans Debated For Fort Greene-Clinton Hill
Representatives of Forest City Ratner agree to look into expanding giveaways north of Atlantic Avenue.
Fort Greene-Clinton Hill Patch
by Paul Leonard
For denizens of the neighborhoods north of the Atlantic Yards project, a new weapon in the battle against vermin may soon be at hand.
During the fifth meeting of the Atlantic Yards cabinet on Sept. 22, representatives from Forest City Ratner said it would look into supplying free rat resistant garbage cans for Fort Greene-Clinton Hill residents.
The developer already provides trashcans at several rat "hot-spots" in Prospect Heights. However, along with a rise in rat sightings in Fort Greene have come increased calls for Forest City Ratner to expand the program to the blocks north of Atlantic Avenue.
Residents blame increased excavation, demolition and construction at the Atlantic Yards site for the increase in rodent activity.
Forest City Ratner has said the increase in rat sightings is unrelated to Atlantic Yards construction.
NoLandGrab: And big chunks of the Antarctic ice shelf falling into the ocean have nothing to do with global warming, either.
As Norman Oder points out in the comments, Forest City was more or less shamed into considering the trash-can giveaway by City Council member Tish James.
Posted by eric at 10:52 AM
October 4, 2011
Can't sleep? On video, the overnight jackhammer and excavator tear up Pacific Street, make a din
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder took his video camera over to Fourth Avenue and Pacific Street last night to see what all the racket was. Turn up the volume at your own peril.
[I]t's questionable whether the state's environmental review considered the full impact, given that soundproofed windows were offered only to people on the east side of Pacific and Dean streets, not the west. Nor were they offered to anybody living on Fourth Avenue.
Shouldn't measures have been extended? I haven't gotten an answer from Empire State Development.
On video
Well, I went over there last night at around 11 pm to observe jackhammering and the work of an excavator. The video begins near the station exit on the east side of Fourth near Pacific. The noise from the work was quite audible underground.
How loud was it?
My camera is mainly for still photos, so the microphone, and video capacity, remain rudimentary. So the actual volume of the work is even louder.
I didn't bring a decibel meter, but I can say that, as of this morning, my ears still ache. So it's understandable that residents say they can't sleep.
NoLandGrab: As Bruce Ratner is fond of saying, "Let them eat Sominex."
Posted by eric at 12:41 PM
2006 environmental analysis underestimates extent of construction noise impacts; affected residents left without recourse
Atlantic Yards Watch
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AYW has received numerous incident reports about noise from nighttime work in the vicinity of Pacific Street, 4th and Atlantic Avenues beginning in late July. Similar complaints have also been posted on Brownstoner and made to elected officials. The work involves infrastructure for the Barclays Center, and includes street construction with jackhammering.
After following up with the residents who submitted incident reports, AYW has observed the following:
Some affected residents live outside the zone identified in the 2006 Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) where significant noise impacts were anticipated. Sensitive receptor locations in the 2006 analysis (locations like residences or open space where human activity may be affected by project generated noise) do not account for more recent conversions from commercial to residential in the vicinity of the project site.
None of the residents complaining have received notice of the noise attenuation measures offered by Forest City Ratner Companies (FCRC).
The specific noise attenuation measures offered as mitigation (double paned windows and air conditioners) are already in place and residents report they are still kept up at night.
A common complaint in the residents' reports is that their windows are not sufficient to stop the noise caused by the jackhammering, resulting in sleepless nights. The homes of the residents commenting below are labeled on the map above showing the zone significant construction noise impacts were anticipated in the 2006 FEIS (modified from FEIS, figure 17c-2). The anticipated affected area is shaded gray. It is also the zone in which FCRC is required to make noise mitigation measures available to residents.
NoLandGrab: This should really come as a surprise to no one, but the Atlantic Yards Environmental Impact Statement is, on a pretty much daily basis now, being exposed as worthless.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, AY Watch: Noise plagues residents outside zone where impacts were anticipated
Posted by eric at 12:27 PM
September 30, 2011
Trucks still idle improperly at Atlantic Yards site, move from Pacific Street "No Standing" zone to Atlantic Avenue "No Standing" zone
Atlantic Yards Report
We fully expect to be relaxing in our Martian colony, watching a hologram about the last case of cancer, before Forest City Ratner and the ESDC enforce their own truck rules around the Atlantic Yards construction site.
Well, someone managing work at the Atlantic Yards site has been reading Atlantic Yards Watch. And they've apparently decided that, if they're going to continue to flout city parking rules by idling trucks in the early morning, it's better to do it on a non-residential street.
But Atlantic Yards Watch contributors are still watching.
In other words, the dump trucks that for weeks have for weeks been idling on Pacific Street between Sixth and Carlton avenues, occupying a "No Standing" zone, yesterday appeared (above) on Atlantic Avenue, occupying a "No Standing" zone between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues.
Posted by eric at 12:53 PM
What can be done during the next month of jackhammering? Waiting for answers
Atlantic Yards Report
Two days ago, I queried Empire State Development, the state agency in charge of Atlantic Yards.
I pointed them to an Atlantic Yards Watch posting:
I have filed numerous 311 noise complaints about the jack hammering going on between 10pm and at least 4am every evening for the past 5 weeks. I can't sleep. I had a guest leave my apartment at 3am a few weeks ago to stay in a hotel because of the jack hammering.
This exception to the construction noise rule should not have been approved for jack hammering that goes on for hours on end every single night. It is torture for those of who live in the area.
I have also written to Community Boards 2 and 6. If someone doesn't put a stop to this, I will either have to have my windows soundproofed or move.The jackhammering, as CB 2 District Manager Robert Perris told the complainant, is mandated to be done at night by the city Department of Transportation.
Forest City Ratner executive Jane Marshall, at an Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting last week, likened it to a dentist's appointment that would be over after a month or so.
But Forest City Ratner was to pay for soundproofed windows on certain blocks in the vicinity of the project site.
"Is there any plan/option for FCR to pay for additional soundproofing, as they were required at least for certain areas?" I asked two days ago.
I'll update this when I get an answer.
Posted by eric at 12:07 PM
September 28, 2011
From the latest Construction Alert: some residents to lose water service temporarily; Flatbush Avenue will lose a lane at night
Atlantic Yards Report
According to the latest two-week Atlantic Yards Construction Alert (below), dated September 25 but distributed yesterday by Empire State Development (after preparation by developer Forest City Ratner), some residents around the 4th Avenue and Flatbush Avenue intersection will lose water service temporarily--but it's unclear how long and how extensive that shutdown will be.
Also, the document indicates that bollard installation--pending Department of Transportation approval (hearing October 5)--is on the way. Also, additional lane restriction on Atlantic Avenue is planned, and from 10 pm to 6 am a lane on Flatbush Avenue will go out of service.
Posted by steve at 11:12 AM
September 27, 2011
#128553 Jack hammering EVERY NIGHT
SeeClickFix
This one might be beyond the abilities of SeeClickFix.
Street Address:
590 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, NY
Boerum HillTags: Noise Complaint
Status: OpenI have filed multiple noise complaints with 311. Every night (except when it rains!) jack hammering begins around 10pm and goes on through the wee hours of the morning. I have to turn on my a/c unit in the bedroom just to muffle the noise. It's difficult to sleep. I live on Pacific St. near 4th Ave. and it seems that this construction project (roads? cable company? no idea) is exempt from the 6pm-7am law prohibiting loud construction. Why? There are many apartment buildings in the area. I had a guest in my apartment leave in the middle of the night to stay in a hotel. This must stop. It's inhumane.
NoLandGrab: Why? Because Bruce Ratner has an arena to build.
Posted by eric at 12:49 PM
September 26, 2011
A cloud of smoke rises above the arena this morning
Atlantic Yards Watch
A cloud of what appeared to be smoke rose above the arena this morning. The photo above and the time-lapse video below are derived from photography taken from our live camera facing the arena block.
The live camera takes photos every minute. The time stamp on the photos shows the smoke lasting for approximately 15 minutes from 6:46 to 7:00 AM. The images appear to show the cloud moving out of the arena block toward the camera. Air quality is a major concern for the community surrounding the construction site and also presents health hazards for construction workers.
The smoke was first noticed by an Atlantic Yards Watch contributor who was videotaping this morning's truck activity. The incident report filed by that contributor primarily focuses on truck violations, but it also includes video capturing the smoke around the 3:17 mark.
NoLandGrab: It's likely they were testing the machine that blows smoke up the ass of the news media prior to this morning's big press event.
Posted by eric at 2:50 PM
Getting the arena done in time for Jay-Z means they're cutting corners
Atlantic Yards Report
As the hoopla crests for Jay-Z's announcement this morning of Barclays Center inaugural activities, let's remember:
- The state understated the toll on the community.
- Noise overnight likely has affected more people than predicted.
- Truckers idling in a residential neighborhood ignore site and city rules.
Posted by eric at 8:48 AM
Moving the goalposts: Will the Barclays Center open in "the summer of 2012"? Was the first tower due "by the end of the year"?
Atlantic Yards Report
With an announcement expected today of a Jay-Z concert series (and local marketing campaign) to launch the Barclays Center, does that mean the arena will open in "the summer of 2012," as once promised?
It depends on what the word "open" means.
The fall of 2012 begins on 9/22/12. The "grand opening"--presumably with that Jay-Z concert--has long been promised as 9/28/12, nearly a week later.
However, that "grand opening" is to be preceded by "public events and tours," during which the arena would be "open."
Posted by eric at 8:45 AM
September 25, 2011
Understatements from the Final EIS: construction vehicle noise "not predicted to be significant" and noise levels from construction "relatively low for... a project of this magnitude"
Atlantic Yards Report
With evidence of continued overnight noise faced by Brooklyn residents and trucks idling improperly early in the morning, it's worth a look at what Chapter 17, Construction Impacts, of the Atlantic Yards Final Environmental Impact Statement predicted:
In general, noise generated by construction vehicles traveling to and from the project site was not predicted to be significant.
Perhaps "[i]n general" serves as a weasel phrase to avoid specific impacts on people living on Pacific Street.
The chapter also stated:
While construction activities would be noticeable and intrusive, the noise levels produced by construction activities with the incorporated noise reduction measures would be relatively low for construction of a project of this magnitude. Additional mitigation measures that were identified to further reduce these incremental construction noise levels at nearby residences are described below and summarized in Chapter 19, “Mitigation”.
But there aren't many projects of this magnitude, and the state overrode city zoning to allow an arena to be built within 200 feet of residences.
So it also could be said that the "noticeable and intrusive" construction activities would be relatively higher because they'd be that much closer to people.
Posted by eric at 1:42 PM
September 24, 2011
The collateral damage from construction = at least a month-long root canal; were sufficient mitigation measures (soundproofing, etc.) taken?
Atlantic Yard Report
Just like a good terrible neighbor, Forest City Ratner is there — 24/7.
Y'know, to get that Barclays Center built, there just has to be a little collateral damage. Arena boosters would say there's always disruption with construction--and there is.
Except it should be within limits, right? Nobody would countenance, say, dismemberment of just one member of the public. But what about a month-long root canal?
Forest City Ratner executive Jane Marshall suggested Thursday that disruptive, noisy overnight work near the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues would be over, like a "dentist's appointment," by the end of October.
"Losing my sanity"
Meanwhile, as one resident wrote in a complaint to Atlantic Yards Watch, late night work has been driving him nuts:
probably my last entry since it appears that the overnight jackhammering has been approved and will not stop for about a year until all is said and done. continuing the reporting to 311 is, therefore, a waste of my time.
looking at soundproofing my windows which is expensive, but so is losing my sanity.As the complainant suggests, some work will continue for more than a month. Indeed, a message from Forest City Ratner points to the installation of new water trunk main and associated distribution mains on Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues, for which Stage Three work should be complete by April 2012. Other sidewalk work would last until August, 2012, though it's unclear how much jackhammering that will include.
Posted by eric at 10:44 AM
September 23, 2011
Not just Thursday: video from this morning shows trucks stacked up on Pacific Street and other violations
Atlantic Yards Report
Earlier today I described videos (posted on Atlantic Yards Watch) that showed trucks stacked up at the southeast corner of Sixth Avenue and Pacific Street rather than queuing a block away as required.
This morning the same thing happened, according to Atlantic Yards Watch, along with dump trucks illegally idling next to the Newswalk building on Pacific Street (see screenshot) and the continued failure to follow the "Stop Here on Red Light" sign.
Click through for video and more.
NoLandGrab: There's a reason they call it dope.
Posted by eric at 9:32 PM
Early morning violations of truck protocols contrast with FCRC statements at Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet
Atlantic Yards Watch
Lying was much easier before smart-phone cameras and the Internet.
The protocols for construction trucks described "as significantly improved" yesterday by FCRC's Adam Schwartz at the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet are documented being repeatedly violated earlier yesterday morning and today by multiple incident reports filed on this website.
Only hours before Schwartz spoke at Brooklyn Borough Hall, project-related trucks were advancing before the receiving gate was ready, idling, standing in no-standing and no parking zones, ignoring a stop sign, driving the wrong way on a one-way street, and not obeying NYCDOT designated truck routes.
At the District Service Cabinet FCRC's Schwartz stated, "the guard does not release trucks from our site until the gate is ready to receive them." The guard is located at Pacific Street and Carlton Avenue. In following this protocol the trucks enter the project site from Vanderbilt Avenue and line up inside the project footprint on the former Pacific Street between Carlton and Vanderbilt Avenues. This is apparently done in the hope of lessening impacts on the residents who live along the stretch of Pacific Street between Carlton and 6th Avenues that would not ordinarily be a truck route.
But this protocol was not followed.
NoLandGrab: We would ask "what are they smoking?" — but we know the answer already.
Posted by eric at 9:18 PM
A factor in Atlantic Yards delays?
Atlantic Yards Report
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This did not come up at yesterday's Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting.
NoLandGrab: This explains a lot.
Posted by eric at 5:36 PM
Are new procedures "very effective" in managing truck traffic at arena site? Videos show cluster of trucks on residential street
Atlantic Yards Report
Yesterday, less than four hours before a Forest City Ratner official declared that new procedures had been "very effective" in preventing trucks from approaching entrance gates at the Atlantic Yards site before workers were ready to receive them, a resident shot videos that show exactly the opposite.
The videos shot beginning at 6 am were included in two postings (1, 2) on Atlantic Yards Watch made by a resident of the Newswalk building along Pacific Street between Sixth and Carlton avenues.
That stretch sits between the professed staging area--now a private street--on Pacific Street between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues and the arena entrance west of Sixth Avenue.
Clearly lots of trucks are jumping the gun--and ignoring both site rules and violating parking regulations.
Click thru for the videos.
NoLandGrab: Maybe it wouldn't be so hard to follow what would appear to be simple rules if they cut back a little on the wacky weed.
Posted by eric at 5:11 PM
September 22, 2011
Flashback: Nets' Yormark was "absolutely" sure the arena would open in the fall of 2011
Atlantic Yards Report
Remember how Nets CEO Brett Yormark was certain that the arena would open this season? Let's go back to a 12/2/08 interview with a skeptical Craig Carton of WFAN.
BY: A realistic time frame is in Brooklyn, operating in the summer of 2011, being there for the '11-'12 season.
CC: So being there in the fall of 2011, so three years from this season--
BY: That’s correct--
CC: --you think that you’ll have everything built, the infrastructure done, and you will bounce a basketball in an arena in Brooklyn in three years?
BY: Absolutely. Convinced of it.
Now, of course, Yormark is convinced the arena will open in the fall of 2012. It's much more likely--a lot of contractual money depends on it, which is one reason there's so much after-hours work.
But we'll keep watching for that after-hours work.
Posted by eric at 12:14 PM
Construction of the Ratner/Prokhorov (“Barclays”) Arena Is Behind Schedule. Either That, OR a 24/7 Construction Schedule Was ALWAYS Intended
Noticing New York
Ostensibly, construction of the Ratner/Prokhorov (“Barclays”) basketball arena for the Nets, which is being erected where Park Slope, Fort Greene and Prospect Heights intersect, is now, and has always been “ahead of schedule.” That’s according to the construction reports prepared by real estate consultant Merritt & Harris, reporting to the trustee for holders of the bonds issued to finance the project. See: Wednesday, September 14, 2011, Latest consultant's report: arena still ahead of schedule (but lead is narrowing), while transit connection is on schedule (but no longer ahead) from which the above charts were cribbed.
But if construction of the arena is really on schedule, why has it been necessary for some time to accelerate with the shift to a 24/7 round-the-clock construction regime with night time jackhammering and weekend work happening on both Saturdays and Sundays throughout the project footprint? Why is it necessary for the developer/subsidy collector Bruce Ratner’s Forest City Ratner's construction people to get after-hours variances for such increasingly continuous work (which they secretly lie to obtain) except for the fact that work is actually behind schedule?. . . That is unless the round-the-clock scheduling of work was always an intended part of maintaining the construction schedule, in which case the environmental impact statement intentionally avoided depicting with truth and accuracy what was to befall the community?
Posted by eric at 11:25 AM
September 18, 2011
FCRC representative says late night jackhammering is mandated by DOT, and noise can't be muffled
Atlantic Yards Watch
FCRC Community Liaison Brigitte LaBonte has provided more information about nighttime work in roadways.
She details upcoming work on Flatbush Avenue at Dean Street that will take several weeks, and states the traffic mitigation work that is at least partially responsible for complaints about jackhammering will end before the NYC Marathon in early November. The installation of new water mains on Atlantic Avenue will continue until April 2012. Additional mitigation work such as the construction of sidewalks will continue until August 2012. Nighttime use of the staging area associated with infrastructure work in block 1129 will continue through that time.
Some follow up questions have been sent to LaBonte requesting further information about the flexibility of the contractor's timetable for the mitigation work at 4th Avenue and Atlantic, as well as about the possibility of shifting the location of the late night staging area within block 1129 given nighttime disruptions related to it will continue for nearly a year more.
Because LaBonte's information is specific to work occurring in roadways, it does not address extended hours work in the footprint. Over the weekend a new round of complaints were submitted to AYW from residents of Newswalk Condominium complex about demolition work in the railyard on Saturday.
Posted by steve at 10:42 PM
September 16, 2011
Atlantic Yards-related work extends to 24 hours a day, resulting in many reported quality of life impacts
Atlantic Yards Watch
Eine kleine Nachtmusik, brought to you by Bruce Ratner.
Be sure to turn the volume up to 11 to enjoy the full effect of the late-night jackhammering.
Late night and weekend work hours continue to be expanded at Atlantic Yards. The work in the video above takes place at Atlantic and 4th Avenues on a regular basis late at night and is concluded at 6 am. This video is from September 1st.
Normal construction work hours at the site extend from 7 am to 3:30 pm. Work in the arena is now often 24 hours a day during the week and extends into weekends. As of this weekend, work in the Vanderbilt railyard will take place both Saturdays and Sundays. Truck deliveries for the arena have now been moved forward to as early as 6:00 am. Construction staging on block 1129 is active any time extended hours work takes place elsewhere in the footprint or its vicinity.
The number of workers during extended hours is often significantly less than during normal weekday hours. And according to the Amended Memorandum of Environmental Commitments, "work that generates high noise levels would be scheduled during weekday daytime hours to the extent feasible...unless required by safety or other agency requirements." Now safety and other agency requirements often appear to override community noise concerns.
The work can be distressing for residents nearby. In the last several months repeated complaints have been made about the installation of the traffic mitigations at Atlantic and 4th Avenues.
Posted by eric at 12:26 PM
September 15, 2011
Forest City to launch Sunday hours in railyard for at least three months; 6 am deliveries have begun
Atlantic Yards Report
The latest Atlantic Yards two-week Construction Alert/Update, prepared by Forest City Ratner and distributed by Empire State Development, covers the weeks beginning September 12 and September 19, but was released yesterday, two days late.
The big news: work at the railyard will begin on Sundays for at least three months, starting this Sunday, and that arena site deliveries have begun at 6 am, an hour earlier than previously, and could continue for another year.
Posted by eric at 12:49 PM
September 14, 2011
Latest consultant's report: arena still ahead of schedule (but lead is narrowing), while transit connection is on schedule (but no longer ahead)
Atlantic Yards Report
According to the latest Arena Site Observation Report, dated 9/9/11 (and based on a 7/28/11 visit and documents made available 8/29/11), the Barclays Center remains one month ahead of schedule, while the associated transit connection to the Atlantic Avenue subway hub--after being ahead of schedule--is simply on schedule.
The estimate, based on cash flow, comes in a report prepared by Merritt & Harris, the real estate consultant to the arena PILOT Bond Trustee. Last month's report, however, stated that the transit connection was two months ahead of schedule.
(The transit connection is supposed to be completed by 3/26/12, while the arena is due 8/27/12.)
Some opacity
Also, there seems to be a lingering dispute about the schedule for which the resolution just keeps being put off, with no clarity from the consultant.
NetsDaily stated that the arena is ahead of schedule "despite" the hurricane and earthquake in August. The Site Observation Report makes no mention of the impact of either.
The hurricane hit 8/28/11, by which time nearly all of the month's spending, in documents made available 8/29/11, had been completed. In other words, next months' report should be more illuminating, though, given the relative opacity of these reports, I wouldn't bet that the impact of the hurricane will be noted.
Posted by eric at 12:53 PM
September 13, 2011
Truck deliveries procedures are revised at the site; a new system is introduced with a colored ticket required for entry at some truck entrances
Atlantic Yards Watch
Following months of reports on Atlantic Yards Watch about trucks driving illegal routes, idling, and traveling with uncovered loads in the neighborhoods around Atlantic Yards, a new system of organizing truck deliveries appears to have been put in place by Forest City Ratner this week.
The new system involves a colored ticket which is picked up by drivers on Pacific Street at Carlton Avenue. The drivers then proceed to the gate with the sign that matches the color of their ticket. The ticket is required to enter the gate.
Posted by eric at 9:17 PM
September 5, 2011
Panoramas by Tracy Collins: three views of the arena site
Atlantic Yards
Prospect Heights photographer Tracy Collins on August 27 took several panoramic photos (copyrighted) of the Atlantic Yards arena site, from three separate positions.
Because of the wide lens, they portray the arena site as less vertical and more isolated than actual. But they're still valuable snapshots.
Atlantic Avenue near Fort Greene Place (the continuation of Fifth Avenue, were it not demapped), from the north (note how Atlantic seems to bend).
Dean Street near Flatbush Avenue, the southwest corner of the block (Dean Street bends too, as it continues behind the cars in the intersection; Flatbush goes to the east past the white building).
Atlantic Avenue near South Portland Avenue (the continuation of Sixth Avenue), looking south (note how Atlantic seems to bend).
Posted by eric at 9:49 AM
September 4, 2011
Variations on a B: emerging Barclays Center signage, visions of a Prospect Heights corner, and reminders of some anti-AY murals
Atlantic Yards Report
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At the western end of the southeast block of the Atlantic Yards site, Block 1129 (east of Carlton Avenue and between Pacific and Dean streets), a wall section of weathered metal used for the exterior of the Barclays Center has been established for a little more than a week.
I walked by on Friday, September 2, and shot several pictures with an extended lens.
Thus the buildings in the background seem extremely close, though they're not. At right, for example, the gray and white building, 470 Vanderbilt, looks quite close, though it's actually bordered by the railyard and wide Atlantic Avenue.
And while the wall section looks large in close-up, it looks much smaller from a distance.
Below are photos shot from farther away along Carlton Avenue south of the corner as well as directly west of the corner. Note that Block 1129 will eventually by used for indefinite interim surface parking, for 1100 vehicles.
...
Again, 470 Vanderbilt seems very close, as do other buildings across Atlantic Avenue. Note how the wall section at left is blank, where anti-Atlantic Yards murals, including "Gehry, thy name is eminent domain," were painted over.
However, the "Obama!!" mural, also painted by the anti-AY Prospect Heights Action Coalition (PHAC), was, prudently, allowed to remain.
Click on the link to see the complete photo-tour.
Posted by steve at 8:50 PM
September 3, 2011
Will sidewalks close around the arena? Partly, during construction of towers
Atlantic Yards Report
The Empire State Development Corporation has posted (also embedded below) 68 questions and responses from the 6/14/11 public meeting on traffic issues.
I've already highlighted some of the questions and responses, including the capacity of sidewalks on Dean Street, plans for the surface parking lot, the impact of traffic on the Dean Street Playground, a post-arena opening traffic study, and the Transportation Demand Management plan.
Sidewalk closures coming
The question:
53.Please discuss the timetable for sidewalk closure on the Arena block while the Arena is in operation.
The answer:
Once the Arena opens all sidewalks are expected to be open as well, although during construction of the remaining buildings on the Arena block, there is the potential for intermittent partial sidewalk closures in the vicinity of that construction work. FCRC has stated that B2 (at the northeast corner of Flatbush Avenue and Dean Street) will be under construction by the Arena opening. Any sidewalk closures will be included in the construction alerts posted on ESD’s website and distributed to the community boards and residents. No sidewalk closings (or partial closings) would take place without NYCDOT or NYCDOB approval, and they would require a Maintenance and Protection of Traffic (MPT) plan to address and minimize the impacts of the construction work.
(Emphasis added)
On the other hand, the sidewalks in places will be constricted, so closing sidewalks and having the passageway diverted to the street will make things more complicated.
Posted by steve at 9:51 PM
September 2, 2011
After "continuing violations regarding truck protocols," state to issue first-ever "notice of violation" to Forest City Ratner, posing potential fines
Atlantic Yards Report
Is Empire State Development (ESD, aka Empire State Development Corporation), the state agency overseeing the Atlantic Yards project, finally cracking down on contractors and developer Forest City Ratner (FCR) not following the rules at the construction site?
Well, slightly, which in the context of widespread complaints marks a step forward.
Errant trucks
On 8/25/11, after I saw the Atlantic Yards Watch post, Not an isolated incident: truck use of residential Clermont Avenue is widespread, I asked ESD to comment.
Agency spokeswoman Elizabeth Mitchell responded two days ago, on 8/31/11:
In general, the identified instances of non-compliance have been corrected. ESD is able to fine the developer for persistent violations, but most violations have been episodic instances of non-compliance by one of the contractors working on the project. ESD plans to issue a notice of violation to FCR for several continuing violations regarding truck protocols.
What's that mean? Mitchell responded:
A “notice of violation” is a letter from us to FCRC stating that FCRC has not complied with the MEC [Memorandum of Environmental Commitments]. FCRC has 30 days to comply with the MEC, and if they do not, ESD is able to require them to pay a fine of $1,000 per day.
Yesterday she clarified that it was the first notice of violation.
Note that it's not clear what "several continuing violations regarding truck protocols" describes. It could refer only to the mis-use of truck routes, but it sounds broader. So it also might apply to the failure to cover trucks with a tarp to suppress dust or perhaps apparently improper deliveries.
What does it mean?
Given that there have been periodic--and seemingly persistent--blatant violations, with ESD calling them isolated incidents, it's notable that the state has finally, belatedly acted.
NoLandGrab: Pardon our French, but what the f**k is so hard about throwing a tarp over a truck and not driving on streets you're not supposed to drive on? Or about actually enforcing those rules?
And we're supposed to count on these people to manage game-day traffic and other complex issues?
Posted by eric at 10:24 AM
August 31, 2011
From the latest Construction Alert: signs that excavation has been delayed (flooding?), bus stop on Flatbush removed for utility work
Atlantic Yards Report
Yesterday, one day late, Empire State Development (aka Empire State Development Corporation) issued the two-week Construction Alert (bottom) dated 8/29/11 prepared by developer Forest City Ratner. I've highlighted below changes compared to the alert issued two weeks earlier, dated 8/15/11.
The changes seem relatively small, though, interestingly enough, one paragraph in the 8/15/11 alert was missing:
Excavation for storm/sanitation/water services near the intersections of Dean & Flatbush as well as 6th & Pacific will continue during this reporting period and the next. These excavations (trenches) will be in excess of 25 feet below street level and will require tie-in to existing piping within both Dean Street and/or 6th Avenue. Permits are being submitted to borough agencies to allow the tie-ins and a maintenance and protection of traffic (MPT)/pedestrians plans(s) is being prepared; installation will not occur until permits have been granted. A second and/or third shift is being considered to execute this work. Permits for a second or third shift to perform this work will be submitted prior to beginning the work.
(Emphasis added)
I asked ESD yesterday if that excavation was completed, or delayed, perhaps because of the rain associated with Hurricane Irene. If/when I get a response, I'll add it.
Posted by eric at 10:46 AM
August 29, 2011
Lago di Bruce
flickr
Raul Rothblatt documented the aftermath of Hurricane Irene's pass through Prospect Heights.
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Photo: Raul Rothblatt
Posted by eric at 7:11 PM
Video shows that, after criticism was raised publicly, trucks as of August 26 stopped using residential street as shortcut
Atlantic Yards Report
I can't say the video below documents riveting action, but it does seem to confirm that those working at the railyard site finally paid attention to criticism aired on Atlantic Yards Watch and this blog: trucks previously seen using Clermont Avenue, a residential street, in violation of city law and site rules, as of Friday, August 26, were no longer doing so.
Posted by eric at 6:54 PM
Storm mostly spares New York City; had winds been worse, unsecured potential projectiles at Atlantic Yards site could have posed dangers
Atlantic Yards Report
Anyone familiar with Bruce Ratner's record of "securing" construction sites won't be surprised that Atlantic Yards was a hurricane accident waiting to happen.
As the New York Times headline put it, Storm Damage Largely Spares New York, which includes the Atlantic Yards site.
NetsDaily reported:
Barry Baum, senior vice-president for communications at The Barclays Center reports the arena "had no structural damage or damage to equipment. There's water, but it is being pumped out. Everything held up very well." Critics had questioned whether equipment had been secured.
That's a rather pat dismissal (though par for the NetsDaily course). After all, the fact of no damage does not mean that equipment was secured.
As noted yesterday, there were signs of inadequate preparation--materials and equipment left uncovered at the site, despite instructions from the Department of Buildings.
Additional photos
And, according to the file below contributed by a reader, there were several instances of unsecured potential projectiles, including loose lumber. Also note overturned toilets and some collected trash that likely exacerbates the rat problem.
Note that the file is hardly comprehensive; the before-and-after photos focus on the railyard and the site perimeter, not the interior of the arena site, where there were more materials and equipment.
Click thru for pictures, including one of the "Outhouse of Flying Daggers."
Posted by eric at 9:24 AM
August 28, 2011
Atlantic yards construction site with equipment not tied down.
yfrog
A casual inspection of the Atlantic Yards arena construction site makes one have serious doubts that the Department of Building guidelines for securing a construction site before hurricane Irene hits Brooklyn were followed.
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NoLandGrab: The first item on the DOB's list is "Tie down and secure material and loose debris at construction sites."
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, As storm approached, were materials and equipment at Atlantic Yards site secured? Photos suggest vulnerability
Posted by steve at 10:17 PM
August 26, 2011
Hurricane prep: starting tonight at 9 pm and going 'til 6 am, noisy work on streets around arena site to clean sewers/catch basins
Atlantic Yards Report
All Atlantic Yards work might be suspended after 2 p.m. tomorrow, but Bruce Ratner is giving residents near the Atlantic Yards site a special pre-hurricane gift tonight.
An announcement from developer Forest City Ratner via Empire State Development:
As part of the Atlantic Yards Emergency Preparedness Plan for Hurricane Irene, the utility contractor has secured a Vactor Truck and will be cleaning a number of catch basins in the area of the Atlantic Yards Project. This cleaning will assist in the water flow away from the streets. Below is a list of the 11 catch basins that will they will be working on as may be required:
1. North side of Dean St. at Flatbush Ave:
2. South side of Dean St. at Flatbush Ave
3. West side of 6th Ave at Pacific St.
4. South side of Atlantic Ave west of 6th Ave.
5. South side of Atlantic Ave between 5th Ave and 6th Ave.
6. South west corner of Pacific St. and Carlton Ave intersection
7. South east corner of Pacific St. and Carlton Ave intersection
8. West side of 6th Ave, south of Pacific St.
9. East side of 6th Ave, south of Pacific St.
10. North side of Pacific St., east of 6th Ave.
11. South side of Pacific St., east of 6th Ave.This work will commence Friday, August 26th at approximately 9 P.M. and will be concluded by 6 A.M., Saturday, August 27th Residents in the vicinity of the project should be aware that the machinery used for this work is noisy. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
Posted by eric at 9:40 PM
Department of Buildings suspends construction throughout city starting 2 pm Saturday; no AY arena work was planned
Atlantic Yards Report
There's no after-hours variance for work at the Atlantic Yards arena site this weekend (unlike last weekend), which might make sense, given the impending hurricane and--as noted below--that the city has suspended work starting 2 pm tomorrow.
Posted by eric at 9:04 PM
Not an isolated incident: truck use of residential Clermont Avenue is widespread
Atlantic Yards Watch
by Danae Oratowski
More than a dozen videos, taken over the course of a single week, document repeated illegal use of Clermont Avenue by fully loaded dump trucks leaving the project site from the Carlton Avenue brige exit. As the videos show, trucks exiting the Carlton Avenue bridge site on to Atlantic make the first left on to Clermont, departing from NYC's designated truck route. Clermont Avenue is a residential street of three story townhouses and a public housing complex and is the location of two public playgrounds (one is part of the Atlantic Terminal Housing; the other, the Cuyler Gore playground, is at intersection of Clermont and Lafayette).
The videos were recorded on three days, August 15, 18 and 19 (There is an AY Watch incident report for each day; while each day's report documents mulitiple violations.) Most of the trucks had ‘LMC Trucking - USDOT: 1501837’ as vehicle identifiers.
The use of a residential street as a truck route violates NYC City law as well as the Barclays Center Delivery Truck Rules and Requirements, which is part of the project's of Amended Memorandum of Environmental Commitments, to be enforced by ESD and Forest City Ratner.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, From Atlantic Yards Watch: trucks continue to leave railyard site and use residential street
Posted by eric at 11:17 AM
August 25, 2011
Ratner Files App for First Residential Bldg. At Atlantic Yards
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Linda Collins
Nostradamus? No, MaryAnne Gilmartin!
MaryAnne Gilmartin, executive vice president of commercial and residential development at Forest City Ratner Companies, predicted it would happen.
At a meeting of the Brooklyn Real Estate Roundtable in February, when she was giving an update on the Barclays Center Arena and the Atlantic Yards development, she said that within the year construction might begin on the development’s first residential building closest to the arena.
Indeed, a permit application was filed Aug. 16 with the city’s Department of Buildings (DOB) for the new building.
Emphasis, ours.
NoLandGrab: Yeah, and The Rapture came on May 21st, and since we didn't repent, we must be in Hell, condemned to having to read nonsense like that above for eternity.
Posted by eric at 11:28 AM
Barclays Center Going Up, Out, and Glassy
Curbed
by Kelsey Keith
Curbed has new construction photos of the Barclays Center, replete with God-awful pre-rusted siding.
You've seen all the ridiculously glossy renderings, but how's that Barclays Center arenafication business going? Evidenced by our intrepid intern William Weber, a good portion of the weathered steel facade is in place and things are getting glassy.
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Photo: William Weber/Curbed
Posted by eric at 11:12 AM
Track outages in two weekends (September/October) due to "continuing construction work at Atlantic Yards"
Atlantic Yards Report
Speaking of changes in our transportation infrastructure, Bruce Ratner will be knocking out subway service for a couple weekends this fall.
Meanwhile, construction does have consequences: subway closures.
The latest Atlantic Yards Construction Alert provided this ambiguous information:
Track Outages (General Orders)
IRT and BMT Tunnel inspections have taken place and repair work will be implemented during scheduled NYCT track outages during evenings and weekends. An IRT GO is scheduled for Saturday, August 27th to perform ceramic tile work. The next BMT GO’s will take place in September and October and are currently being scheduled with NYCT. Minor repair and cleanup work will occur on selective evenings under scheduled NYCT flagging protection.
Brooklyn Community Board 14, recipient of a message from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, provides more detail:
Weekends of September 23-25 and October 14-16, 2011:
From Friday beginning at 10:00 PM to Monday ending at 5:00 AM, for these two weekends B & Q service will be suspended between Pacific Street and Prospect Park, due to continuing construction work at Atlantic Yards. Shuttle bus service will be provided at Pacific Street, 7th Avenue, and Prospect Park B & Q stations.
Posted by eric at 11:01 AM
August 24, 2011
Bruce Ratner to Finally Build a Residential Tower at Atlantic Yards?
The L Magazine
by Mark Asch
For now, the Observer further reports, Forest City Ratner isn't ruling out the possibility of building a prefabricated tower—it'd be a cheaper, shorter process, requiring far fewer construction workers—a test balloon that took many potshots when it was floated this spring.
“'Clearly, prefab housing is not what we expected,'" Richard Weiss, a spokesman for Construction and General Building Laborers’ Local 79, told the Brooklyn Paper: '"The only reason we [supported the project] was for jobs for our members.'" Right, because Forest City Ratner has kept so many of the promises it made in
manufacturingenlisting support for Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at 11:14 AM
Permit for first Atlantic Yards tower filed; signs suggest it won't be modular (so how will they save money?)
Atlantic Yards Report
While the permit application doesn't say so explicitly, one sign points to conventional construction: the building's primary structural system would be "Steel (Encased in Concrete)," while the tallest modular building extant, a 24-story, $34 million high-rise in Wolverhampton, England, is framed with structural steel.
That structure is considerably shorter than the 33-story, 322-foot, 368-unit tower planned by Forest City. Indeed, what drew headlines was Forest City's apparent interest in building the world's tallest modular residential building--a tactic that might save significant sums but also could pose risks.
...More subsidies?
If Forest City can't save money via modular construction, how do the numbers "pencil out"? After all, in March 2011, talk show host Brian Lehrer asked Rafael Cestero, outgoing Commissioner of the Department of Housing, Preservation, and Development (HPD), about the report that HPD had declined Forest City Ratner's recent request for an additional $10 million in additional subsidies--beyond the $14 million for 150 units--for the first residential building.
"One is, we have a set of programs that we use across the city... that fall within certain subsidy parameters that make sense for taxpayers and make sense for the city," Cestero responded. "We felt that the additional subsidy that Forest City was requesting... didn't meet those parameters and, frankly, that we felt was not a good public investment to go beyond what we have already committed."
"We want to see housing built there. We're all deeply committed to seeing not just the arena built, but to see... the affordable housing built," he added, "but we think the parameters that we've laid out, the program that we've laid out, allows that project to go forward."
So has the developer figured out a solution? Or has the Bloomberg administration moderated its position?
Posted by eric at 10:03 AM
Ratner finally moves ahead with residential Yards tower
The Brooklyn Paper
by Daniel Bush
The 368-unit building — which may be either a conventional tower or a controversial pre-fabricated structure — would rise on Dean Street just east of Flatbush Avenue, next door to the under-construction, 19,000-seat Barclays Center.
Ratner’s Executive Vice President MaryAnne Gilmartin said that construction could start this winter after a “year-end ground-breaking.”
Designs for the building are being finalized, but Gilmartin confirmed that Ratner’s team is “still designing both prefab and conventional alternatives” — with a final design decision expected by the end of the year.
Posted by eric at 9:54 AM
Ratner eyes arena apts.
NY Post
by Rich Calder
After eight years of planning, developer Bruce Ratner hopes to finally move forward with the first of 16 residential and commercial towers planned for Brooklyn’s embattled Atlantic Yards project.
Ratner has filed a permit with the Department of Buildings to erect a 33-story, 368-unit building at Flatbush Avenue and Dean Street, next to the 18,000-seat Barclays Center being built for the NBA’s Nets.
Half the units would be designated as affordable housing for low- and middle-income families.
Posted by eric at 9:48 AM
August 23, 2011
If Bruce Ratner Builds It: Forest City Files DOB Application for First Apartment Tower
NY Observer
by Thornton McEnery
Here comes the next round in the city’s most intractable debate over the further development of Atlantic Yards, as it appears that exactly one week ago, Forest City Ratner filed its first building application for a residential tower on the corner of Dean Street and Flatbush Avenue.
And that, and a dollar, will get you... a dollar.
As The Observer reported in the fall, Forest City Ratner planned to begin construction on the project during the first half of this year. While it has missed that mark, there was suspicion nothing would get built this year at all. Herewith is the first proof that might not actually be the case.
According to Forest City Ratner, everything is moving ahead as planned. “The permits were filed as standard operating procedure as we move forward,” Director of Commercial & Residential Development MaryAnne Gilmartin said in a statement. “We are still designing both prefab and conventional alternatives for the first residential building at Atlantic Yards and are shooting for a year end groundbreaking. We hope to show renderings to the public during the 4th quarter of this year.”
NoLandGrab: By "show renderings to the public," Gilmartin means "grant an exclusive to The New York Times."
Related coverage...
Curbed, Forest City Ratner Files for First Atlantic Yards Residential Permit
The application calls for a 33-story, 368-unit building, and the company previously promised that it would be a 50-30-20 project—20 percent of the units reserved for low-income tenants, 30 percent for middle-income tenants, and the remaining 50 percent for market-rate tenants. The building listed on the application is also roughly the size of the prefabricated tower Bruce Ratner was considering, and a construction worker at the site told Brownstoner that's still a possibility.
The Real Deal, First permit for residential tower at AY filed
Posted by eric at 10:14 PM
Forest City Starts Permit Push for First AY Tower
Brownstoner
In February a Forest City Ratner executive said the firm hoped to break ground for the first residential building at Atlantic Yards before the year is out, and that may yet happen, as the company just submitted its first application with the DOB for the high-rise. The permit request is for a 33-story, 368-unit tower on Flatbush and 6th Avenue, which means it will be right next to the arena. Half of the building’s units will be affordable housing. A construction worker at the site said this morning that it’s still unclear whether or not the SHoP Architects-designed tower will be prefabricated. Alas, no real renderings yet!
NoLandGrab: And all of the Brooklyn Islanders are going to live there!
Posted by eric at 10:51 AM
August 22, 2011
Traffic, including bicycle lane, to be squeezed by Dean Street excavation between Flatbush and Sixth; new removable fencing to be installed to hasten work
Atlantic Yards Report
According to a Supplemental Report (below) to the two-week Atlantic Yards look-ahead dated August 15, prepared by developer Forest City Ratner and distributed by Empire State Development, some 40' to 60' of the 16’ high fence on Dean Street between Flatbush and Sixth avenues will be removed, and replaced by "temporary 8 foot tall barrier consisting of plywood on Jersey barrier."
The reason? A safer and more portable fence is needed, over 30 to 45 days, to be moved daily to accommodate excavation for water and sewer piping.
Given that the excavation for the water and sewer piping will require a 25-foot trench from the face of the foundation to Dean Street centerline, traffic will be squeezed.
The upshot: part of the bicycle lane will be displaced:
Temporary traffic controls signage will be provided to alert bicycles and vehicles to “share the road”. Some parking on the south side of Dean Street will be removed for the duration of the work.
The 16’ high fence will be reinstalled after the piping is installed.
Posted by eric at 9:48 PM
Article suggests Forest City has chosen low-cost, stackable modular system--perhaps untested domestically--for Block 1129 surface parking
Atlantic Yards Report
"Modular" — it's not just for 34-story apartment buildings anymore.
According to an 8/20/11 article in the Williamsport (PA) Sun-Gazette, headlined City authority explores new type of parking facility, Forest City Ratner is considering an inexpensive, fast-to-assemble pre-fab parking solution (which, I'd add, is apparently little tested domestically, if at all):
Williamsport Parking Authority is exploring a less all-concrete type of parking facility, designed to be demountable, semi-permanent and more environmentally friendly.
It's called More Park System, a "bump-up parking deck," which is made of removable pre-cast concrete platforms secured by galvanized steel beams that can be assembled in a few weeks - as opposed to several months of construction - and is available in airports in Europe and soon to be providing parking for the Brooklyn Nets, the NBA's new franchise team.
Neither the Nets (not a "new" franchise) nor Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner have made such an announcement, but it's plausible that the developer would aim to save money and time.
Could it be that Bruce Ratner's threatened promised 1100-spot surface parking lot could morph into a 2200-spot bi-level lot? This sci-fi/horror flick raises the possibility.
Posted by eric at 10:58 AM
August 18, 2011
At meeting on rats, recognition that the multi-faceted problem persists, especially near transit hub
Atlantic Yards Report
A community forum last night on rodent issues, hosted by Empire State Development and New York City Departments of Health and Sanitation, drew just a handful of residents, but their concerns indicated that, however welcome Forest City Ratner's offer of free heavy-duty garbage cans, rat problems in the area of the Atlantic Yards site will persist.
Notably, the street corners at and near Fourth and Atlantic avenues, heavily-used thoroughfares, overflow with garbage, which draws rats, and additional construction and project-related utility work on the streets exposes rats. A few attendees called on Council Member Steve Levin, who represents those blocks, to take action.
(Council Member Letitia James, who represents the north side of Flatbush Avenue, sent a representative, though Levin did not.)
One resident of Pacific Street between Fourth and Flatbush avenues said that "you have to walk shaking your keys" on the street at night to stave off rats. "Otherwise you hear people screaming" after they encounter the rodents.
She and a resident of Dean Street between Fourth and Fifth avenues both said there were severe problems on their street. Indicating the dicey relationship between homeowners and city agencies, both were reluctant to see their names published, fearing that they might be targeted for inspections, then fined if rat burrows were found.
Source of rats
City officials stressed there were multiple sources of and support for rats in the community, even as residents have put most of the blame on Forest City Ratner's major construction site.
At the Atlantic Yards project site, a state official acknowledged, the developer had not been properly disposing of trash, but had since improved performance by hiring new staff and dedicating baskets for food waste.
Related coverage...
Brownstoner, Addressing the Rodent Problem Near AY
Posted by eric at 1:25 PM
August 17, 2011
Forest City Ratner Responds To Rat Tsunami With Trash Cans
Gothamist
by Garth Johnston
Forest City Ratner, the developer behind the controversial Nets arena currently rising over the Atlantic Yards, seems to have expanded its "rodent control program" to help neighbors dealing with "a rat tsunami." Their solution? Free trash cans! Better than nothing, we guess.
Posted by eric at 10:33 AM
Concrete workers' strike averted at last minute
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder follows up on the 11th-hour agreement by concrete workers to a new contract, which averts possible work disruptions on the Barclays Center construction site.
Posted by eric at 10:19 AM
August 16, 2011
Atlantic Yards developers hand out rat-proof trash cans to neighbors besieged by rodents
NY Daily News
by Kevin Deutsch
Developers of the rat-plagued Atlantic Yards project began doling out free rodent-proof trash cans yesterday to their vermin-weary neighbors.
Forest City Ratner supplied the heavy-duty, high-necked cans after years of complaints from Prospect Heights residents. Locals claim demolition work at the site unleashed an army of furry pests onto their streets - and the only ones happy are the cats.
"I'm glad they're finally giving us these cans, but my cat's been bringing home rats in his mouth since 2007," said Alan Rotthar, 47, who lives across from the future Nets arena. "The rats have been our neighbors ever since excavation began that year. They're in our cars and homes."
...Joe DePlasco, a spokesman for Forest City Ratner, said the cans are part of a larger effort to expel the vermin. "Anything we can do to help fight the problem, we will try to do," he said, adding that the company will give out hundreds of cans this week.
Apparently, some residents aren't convinced by Forest City's platitudes, as this commenter writes:
Nice puff piece. It took loud persistent complaining for RATner to do anything about this. yet it has been happening for years. It should have read after persistent community complaining FCR has finally taken a baby step on this problem.
Posted by eric at 10:34 AM
Forest City Ratner Offers Free Garbage Cans Due To Atlantic Yards Rat Problem
NY1
Ratner to slovenly Prospect Heights residents: it's not us, it's you!
After months of complaints from neighbors about an increased rat population around the Atlantic Yards construction site, the developer is now working to fix the problem.
Forest City Ratner is handing out free garbage cans that are harder for rodents to get into.
The developer claims the rat increase is not because of construction garbage but because people are not disposing of their own garbage properly.
Posted by eric at 10:06 AM
From the latest Construction Alert: not much new, but a third shift may still be requested
Atlantic Yards Report
Below is the latest two-week Atlantic Yards Construction Alert, covering the weeks beginning today, 8/15/11. There's no major news, as far as I can tell, though I've bolded certain pieces of text that represent tweaks from the previous report, dated 8/1/11.
Note that no third shift permit has yet been granted, despite multiple mentions that it might be requested, and that the purported request for permission to begin deliveries at 6 am seems odd, since a permit to begin deliveries at 5 am has already been granted.
(It may be that the former request regards a separate part of the site, but perhaps the next ombudsman can clarify that for us.)
Posted by eric at 9:38 AM
August 14, 2011
Free Rat-Repellent Trashcans for Atlantic Yards Neighbors
Prospect Heights Patch
By Will Yakowicz
Hey, have a trash can. Now the rats are your problem.
Forest City Ratner is offering tenants, superintendents and building owners—near Atlantic Yards—lidded, heavy-duty trashcans to fight the overwhelming rat problem in and around the soon-to-be Nets arena.
FCR’s trashcans are approved by the Department of Health for the “rodent control strategy.”
Not every building is eligible, only buildings that are 12 units or less and located south of Atlantic Avenue from Fourth Avenue to Vanderbilt Avenue; Vanderbilt Avenue from Atlantic Avenue to Bergen Street; Bergen Street from Vanderbilt to Fourth Avenue; and Fourth Avenue (East side only) from Bergen Street to Atlantic Ave.
Posted by steve at 10:24 PM
More trouble with a Casagrande drill when it releases what appears to be smoke
Atlantic Yards Watch
In the last two weeks, this website has received incident reports related to adverse impacts on air quality from mechanical demolition, loading of trucks without spraying, an uncovered pile -- one of a number -- on site, jackhammering of a retaining wall, idling trucks, and now again from the Casagrande drill.
The use of Casagrande drills have instigated complaints from nearby residents related to noise, vibrations and air quality. After striking video documentation of dust spewing from the drill was sent to ESD in April, the drill was apparently modified. In June, mud spewed from the drill injuring two pedestrians outside the construction site and damaging seven cars.
Today, one of the drills released what appears to be smoke into the air. The two videos below were submitted with an incident report which identifies the incident as occurring at 9:23 this morning.
Posted by steve at 10:23 PM
Nine violations by trucks of the Amended Memorandum of Environmental Commitments, Barclays Center Truck Rules and Requirements and/or NYC law are documented today before noon
Atlantic Yards Watch
Nine violations by trucks of the Amended Memorandum of Environmental Commitments, Barclays Center Truck Rules and Requirements, and/or NYC law were documented before noon today. The filer was stationary and only captured those incidents within the visual range of his/her location. The times below are from the incident reports.
1). 5:50 am
A flatbed truck delivering steel idles under the windows of Newswalk's residences on Pacific Street between Carlton and 6th Avenues. The Barclays Center truck rules require trucks to wait on Pacific Street between Carlton and Vanderbilt and advance under the guidance of a flagger at Carlton and Pacific Street. They are not allowed to wait in this location.
The report states the truck idled for over an hour and that the driver ignored a request to move from a resident. The photo below apparently shows an Atlantic Yards worker documenting the truck with a cell phone camera.
2 and 3). 8:44 am
Two trucks, one red and one white, travel Pacific Street between 6th and Carlton Avenues uncovered. ESD has told Atlantic Yards Report that starting August 5th trucks associated with McKissack, (the contractor they identify as the source of the uncovered trucks previously reported at Atlantic Yards Watch), will be removed from the construction project if they leave the work site uncovered. However, a later incident detailed below documents uncovered trucks like these, (possibly even these same trucks), entering the Barclays Center work site which is supervised by Hunt.
The trucks shown in the photo below either left the site uncovered at Carlton Avenue and Pacific Street, or reached this location by traveling a route not designated as a truck route by NYCDOT like Carlton Avenue and/or Dean Street.
4 and 5). 9:00 am
Two flatbed trucks delivering steel wait, (and the incident report states idle), on Pacific Street between 6th and Carlton to enter the arena block. They are not allowed to wait in this location. Note that one is parked in the travel lane of Pacific Street near the main arena entrance gate. This has happened before.
At around the 4:50 point in the video an empty flatbed truck leaves the arena block entrance, making room for the the forward steel truck to advance. As it moves to the gate a pedestrian pushing a baby carriage is in the crosswalk. The pedestrian is forced to walk around the steel delivery while a green van, which the incident report states is also associated with construction, moves forward without stopping at the designated stopping area roughly 150 feet from the stop light. Note how the operation of backing the steel trailer into the arena block ties up the 6th Avenue/ Pacific Street intersection.
Mostly westbound Pacific Street is currently designed to accommodate eastbound vehicles heading to a LIRR railyard access ramp located east of the 6th Avenue intersection. A "two way traffic ahead" sign and a "do not enter" sign providing instruction to drivers in this location were knocked down around a while ago, possibly by construction, and have not been replaced despite 311 calls.
6). 11:06 am
A truck leaves the railyard entrance on Atlantic Avenue near Carlton and turns onto Clermont Avenue. Clermont appears to be regularly used by trucks from this entrance gate, but it is not a designated truck route. The following is the second of a sequence of four photos. McKissack is the contractor for work in the railyard.
7). 11:15
Either the same red truck, or another, travels Pacific Street uncovered.
8 and 9). 12:00 am
The same red and white trucks, or two more, travel down Pacific Street between Carlton and 6th uncovered. The first video shows them traveling down the street and the second entering the Barclays Center site. These trucks either left the construction site uncovered, or reached this location by traveling down a street that is not a designated truck route like Carlton Avenue or Dean Street. Hunt, not McKissack, is the supervising contractor for the arena work.
Click on the link to see the photographic and video backup for these observations.
Posted by steve at 10:18 PM
August 13, 2011
Errant trucks around Atlantic Yards site represent yet more violations of environmental/construction rules; time for state to respond
Atlantic Yards Report
Yesterday morning, I cited, via Atlantic Yards Watch, continuing violations of environmental/truck rules at the Atlantic Yards site.
Last night, Atlantic Yards Watch compiled many more such violations, in Nine violations by trucks of the Amended Memorandum of Environmental Commitments and/or Barclays Center Truck Rules and Requirements are documented today before noon:
Nine violations by trucks of the Amended Memorandum of Environmental Commitments and/or Barclays Center Truck Rules and Requirements were documented before noon today. The filer was stationary and only captured those incidents within the visual range of his/her location. The times below are from the incident reports.
They include:
A flatbed truck delivering steel idles under the windows of Newswalk's residences on Pacific Street between Carlton and 6th Avenues. The Barclays Center truck rules require trucks to wait on Pacific Street between Carlton and Vanderbilt
Two trucks, one red and one white, travel Pacific Street between 6th and Carlton Avenues uncovered.
A truck leaves the railyard entrance on Atlantic Avenue near Carlton and turns onto Clermont Avenue. Clermont appears to be regularly used by trucks from this entrance gate, but it is not a designated truck route.
What's next?
It's time for Empire State Development, the state agency that oversees this project and has taken apparently inadequate measures to address such violations, to respond promptly and directly to these reports.
Either these reports are off-base or, if they are valid (as it sure seems), the state should tell the public what additional measures it will take.
Posted by steve at 11:19 PM
Catching Up With AY Rats
CBS New York, Brooklyn Residents Cry Foul Over Rats At Atlantic Yards
Residents in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn blame Bruce Ratner and his massive Atlantic Yards dig for a problem they say they never had before — rats.
“What an unfortunate coincidence, since that’s his name,” said one woman.
Giant rats are apparently getting into peoples’ homes and cars.
“Engines deteriorated as a result of rodent infestation,” said councilwoman Letitia James, who says they are munching on the garbage.
Now, the Forest City Ratner company has decided to give out hundreds of rat-proof trash cans to a small part of the neighborhood.
“I’m sort of disappointed…that, in fact, the boundaries are so limited,” James told WCBS 880 reporter Alex Silverman.
One neighbor called it far too little, much too late.
“It’s a deal that stinks,” she said.
“It looks like now they’re at least making some attempt to reach out,” replied Silverman. “It seems like you don’t buy it.”
“No I don’t,” she answered.
Fox New York, Rats Invade Neighborhood Near Atlantic Yards Project
Brooklyn residents are experiencing rats in Prospect Heights and blame the Atlantic Yards development as the source.
Residents blame real estate developer Bruce Ratner and his massive Atlantic Yards project for a problem as they say they never had rats before.
Locals say giant rats are apparently getting into homes and cars and according to Councilwoman Letitia James they are going through the garbage.
Ratner’s real estate company plans to distribute hundreds of rat-proof trash cans to a small part of the neighborhood although residents feel that it’s too late to solve the problem.
Posted by steve at 10:57 PM
August 12, 2011
Atlantic Yards "flying up"? On Brian Lehrer, a weak update
Atlantic Yards Report
The arena's rising, sure, but the development is not flying up in the slightest.
Guest host Jami Floyd, who displayed the unfortunate tendency to laugh at things not so funny, like the rat problem around the Atlantic Yards site. Guest Brown suggested, erroneously, that Chinese investors seeking green cards for purportedly job-creating investments were investing "in the arena."
As I commented, they're investing in something called the "Brooklyn Arena and Infrastructure Project," which is replacing a land loan and will go to infrastructure (and possibly other things).
Of course potential investors were told they were investing in the arena, but that was deceptive.
Posted by eric at 9:50 AM
Bruce Ratner — taking on rats!
The Brooklyn Paper
by Kate Briquelet
Bruce Ratner is taking out the trash!
The Atlantic Yards developer on Monday will begin doling out heavy-duty covered garbage cans to Prospect Heights residents who have claimed that his Atlantic Yards mega-project has brought freakishly large rats to their streets.
The move comes one month after the company promised to reimburse infuriated locals for rat-proof cans.
...Councilwoman Letitia James (D–Fort Greene) said she was disappointed that Ratner’s offer doesn’t extend beyond the immediate neighborhood to Fort Greene, but Peter Krashes, president of the Dean Street Block Association, said that this is the first time he can remember that Ratner has accommodated a community request.
“Let’s hope they understand they have an ongoing obligation for the length of the project,” he said. “This is only a first step.”
Posted by eric at 9:42 AM
As trucks continue to violate Atlantic Yards environmental commitments and NYC law, signs emerge that methods for coordinating trucks are changing
Atlantic Yards Watch
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Construction trucks at the Atlantic Yards construction site have repeatedly violated the Amended Memorandum of Environmental Commitments, Barclays Center Truck Rules and Requirements and NYC law. Clarification of truck routes and enforcement were on the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet agenda July 14th, but the meeting ended before the subject was covered.
Since Saturday July 30th, this website has received ten more incident reports, (all public here), related either to trucks driving the wrong route, driving against traffic, waiting in travel lanes or bus stops, leaving the construction site uncovered, or idling. Among the streets documented on this website impacted by insufficient coordination of delivery trailers and trucks are Atlantic Avenue, Pacific Street between Carlton and 6th Avenues, Carlton Avenue between Dean and Pacific Streets, Dean Street, South Portland Avenue, and Clermont Avenue.
...Perhaps through pressure from ESD, discernible changes are being made to the way trucks are coordinated at the site. The changes appear to have been in place for several weeks, but to date have not altered the pace or types of truck violations occurring at the construction site.
Posted by eric at 7:28 AM
August 11, 2011
The mysteries of after-hours work at the arena site: do people live nearby? (yes, but most permits say "no") and what's the rationale? (not made public)
Atlantic Yards Report
Since February, contractors at the Atlantic Yards arena block have 36 times gained after-hours variance (AHV) permits for work at the Atlantic Yards arena block, according to documents available via the Department of Buildings (DOB) web site.
Nine of those instances regarded weekday work that began early or went to a second shift, and 27 regarded weekend work. No 24-hour variance has been granted yet, though the July 18 Construction Update, prepared by developer Forest City Ratner and issued by the Empire State Development Corporation, suggested one might be sought.
Lingering questions
According to the online versions of those permits--the site is known as 620 Atlantic Avenue or 2-6 Fifth Avenue--two things stood out:
- Arena builder Hunt Construction, more than three-quarters of the time, apparently stated that there were no residences within 200 feet of the site. (Yes, there are--see photo below by Tracy Collins, looking west from the corner of Dean Street and Sixth Avenue. As discussed below, Hunt asserts that the permits it files always acknowledge there are residences within 200 feet. Without seeing the original documents, that statement will remain a question mark.)
- No rationale for the after-hours work was publicly provided. Yes, applications to the DOB must contain such a rationale, but apparently the DOB does not make that information public.
I tried to learn more, but didn't get too far.
 |
Click the link to follow Norman Oder down the rabbit hole of the Department of Buildings.
NoLandGrab: Since every one of the few applications that actually disclosed the proximity of nearby residences was granted anyway, why does the DOB bother to ask?
Posted by eric at 10:00 AM
August 10, 2011
Atlantic Yards Developer Looks To Trash Rodent Concerns
NY1
A more accurate headline might be "Atlantic Yards Developer Looks To 'Do Least Amount Possible To Address' Rodent Concerns."
The developer of the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn is looking to fight rodents in the area by giving out heavy duty trash cans to local residents.
Forest City Ratner is providing the cans in response to community complaints about a boom in the rat population in and around the construction site.
The developer says a review of work in the area found garbage in the neighborhood that was not being properly thrown out.
NoLandGrab: That's right, slovenly Prospect Heights residents, the problem isn't the rats — it's YOU! Learn how to throw out your trash! Thank goodness the munificent Bruce Ratner is going to spring (with your money) for new trash cans.
Posted by eric at 5:59 PM
Latest consultant's report: 370 workers on the job (fewer than Forest City Ratner's numbers); arena still ahead of schedule (but lingering schedule issues?)
Atlantic Yards Report
The jobs reality is a little different than what Forest City told the Amsterdam News.
According to the latest Arena Site Observation Report, dated 8/5/11 and based on a 6/23/11 visit and documents made available 7/25/11, the Barclays Center remains one month ahead of schedule and the transit connection remains two months ahead of schedule.
The estimate, based on cash flow, comes in a report prepared by Merritt & Harris, the real estate consultant to the arena PILOT Bond Trustee.
As I wrote 7/22/11 regarding the previous report, some items should provoke further inquiry, such as a discrepancy between the number of workers reported and the number reported by Forest City Ratner.
Also, there may be a lingering dispute about the schedule.
Workers on site: 370 vs. Ratner's numbers
There seem to be fewer workers on site than Forest City Ratner has reported.
Posted by eric at 10:47 AM
August 9, 2011
New: late work at the railyard through this week
Atlantic Yards Report
At 5:40 pm today, I received an announcement from the Empire State Development Corporation:
This is a Supplemental Report to the previously issued two week look-ahead regarding upcoming construction activities at Atlantic Yards covering the period of August 1 – August 14, 2011
The following section has been modified to include new information:
Yard
New Information: work related to the installation of low head room mini piles within the car shop on the north east end of the yard. Work is preparatory work related to the structural support for the car shop roof which is located below Atlantic Avenue. The work will be done fully within the confines of the yard and will be monitored by both the LIRR and The McKissack Group. Work will take place during the hours of 3 P.M. to 11:00 P.M. commencing Tuesday, August 9th and continuing through this reporting period.In other words, it began before it was announced.
Posted by eric at 6:14 PM
ESDC: new process to crack down on errant truckers began Friday; none have received "two strikes;" no answer to question about systemic problem
Atlantic Yards Report
I got some but not all answers today to questions posed last Friday regarding the Empire State Development Corporation's new plan to crack down on truckers who leave the railyard site uncovered.
My questions begin after the bullet points, and the ESDC's answers are interpolated:
- When did the process go into effect?
Last Friday, August 5.
- Is this one contractor, or more than one?
McKissack -- the site of the problem.
- Have any truckers been removed? Are those individual drivers, or subcontractors?
No truckers have been removed because none have received two strikes.
- And isn't it systemic, in a sense: if "Outgoing trucks shall be inspected at the gate," as per the environmental commitments memo, it seems to me there should be some leverage over the firm as a whole, not just the drivers. Does the firm, or whoever's in charge of inspections, face any penalties?
[No answer was received.]
Posted by eric at 3:51 PM
From Atlantic Yards Watch: at the Dean Street Playground, an adult interloper with a reflector vest
Atlantic Yards Report
This report on Atlantic Yards Watch from August 5, at 2:06 pm, does not describe the most significant local impact from construction, but it's still telling.
A construction worker, obviously looking for a place to rest (likely post-shift), planted himself on a bench at the Dean Street Playground half a block east of the arena site.
The worker's vest identified him as working for an arena site subcontractor, and I'm told by the AY Watch contributor this was one of a number of similar episodes at the playground.
 |
No adults allowed without kids
However, as the sign indicates, playground rules prohibit adults except in the company of children. (And sometimes cops ticket people for violating the rule, as in this episode in June at a park in Bed-Stuy.)
Posted by eric at 11:06 AM
August 5, 2011
Not isolated incidents: via Atlantic Yards Watch, more trucks seen to leave project site with material uncovered
Atlantic Yards Report
Though the Empire State Development Corporation on July 22 suggested that a truck leaving the Atlantic Yards site with its contents uncovered was an "isolated incident," the evidence, thanks to Atlantic Yards Watch, continues to mount that it wasn't.
...On July 25, I wrote about how there appear to have been three additional violations that previous week.
On July 26, I cited three additional episodes over the course of two days.
The latest
Yesterday, two more instances were posted on Atlantic Yards Watch.
Posted by eric at 11:19 AM
August 4, 2011
Labor ripples: concrete workers agree to negotiate through August 16; carpenters agree to strke if new contract not reached by August 15
Atlantic Yards Report
From Crain's New York Business today, Concrete workers return, but carpenters OK strike:
Concrete workers, who walked off their jobs at the World Trade Center and other sites Monday, agreed to return to work Thursday and extended their deadline for a new deal to August 16...
Meanwhile, delegates of the second largest construction union in the city, the 25,000-member District Council of Carpenters, voted unanimously Wednesday night to authorize their union to strike if agreement on a new contract isn't reached by Aug. 15...
Workers picketed outside the Atlantic Yards arena site on Monday, August 1, but did not do so on Tuesday.
Posted by eric at 10:05 PM
Concrete workers ordered back to work, including at arena site, but union said to plan appeal
Atlantic Yards Report
From Crain's New York Business today, Ruling: Some WTC workers can't strike: An arbitrator late Tuesday ordered striking concrete workers back to their jobs at four sites across the city, ruling that their walkout violated a no-strike provision in labor agreements covering the projects.
The order covered walkouts at Madison Square Garden, the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, World Trade Center Tower 2 and a luxury residential development on West 57th Street. A separate hearing is set for later today on the walkout at a new Weill Cornell Medical College research center on East 69th Street.
...A source close to the building trades said the Cement and Concrete Workers District Council would appeal the ruling. The source said the union's counsel was not properly notified about Tuesday's hearing and therefore did not know about it in time to show up. Had officials known about the hearing, they would have argued that the no-strike provision was no longer in effect because the workers' contract expired at the end of June.
Posted by eric at 11:18 AM
August 2, 2011
With demolition of a family shelter, the last existing residences in the Atlantic Yards footprint will be eliminated
Atlantic Yards Watch
Forest City Ratner Company is in the process of demolishing 603 Dean Street, one half of the 94 unit residential family shelter formerly known as the Pacific Dean Annex. The shelter's residences are the last to be demolished in the project footprint.
In the 2006 FEIS, the ESDC estimated 171 residential units and 410 residents would be directly displaced by the project. That number did not include the shelter's family residences.
...When it was closed in January 2010, the public was told the shelter would be demolished soon thereafter. Residents were given roughly a month to move during the Christmas holiday period. According to shelter officials at the time, no relocation assistance was provided to the shelter residents by the developer. BrooklynSpeaks sponsors raised funds to alleviate moving costs for the families.
Video: N. Wayne Bailey
Posted by eric at 11:08 PM
Concrete workers still negotiating with Cement League; no pickets this morning at Atlantic Yards site
Atlantic Yards Report
Yesterday, there was a job action outside the Atlantic Yards arena, with workers holding picket signs and refusing to work, though no official strike has been called.
When I visited the site at about 9 am today, there were no pickets. Does that mean they were back at work? I don't know for sure, but will update when I know more.
Posted by eric at 11:05 PM
Progress Moves Along at the Barclays Center
A monthly photo essay documenting the construction of the Atlantic Yards development and the Barclays Center, which the Brooklyn-bound New Jersey Nets will soon call home.
Park Slope Patch
by Kristen V. Brown
Installation on the arena’s sfaçade has begun and work on the arena’s frame is nearly complete. Demolition and excavation still continues on the Long Island Railroad/Vanderbilt Yard side of the site.
Photo: Kristen V. Brown
Posted by eric at 10:58 PM
From the latest Construction Alert: more late shifts, plus a plan to begin deliveries at 6 am through the entire arena construction period
Atlantic Yards Report
Feeling like life is dull around the Atlantic Yards footprint, and things are a little too sleepy for your liking? Consider your prayers answered by the "angel sent from God."
According to the latest two-week Atlantic Yards Construction Update (below, dated August 1) and prepared by developer Forest City Ratner and issued by the Empire State Development, there exists significant potential for second- and third-shift work at around the project site.
Also, the main contractor, Hunt Construction, has requested a permit to allow for deliveries to the arena site beginning at 6 am, rather than at 7 am, though arena completion in fall 2012. The rationale?
This work allows for an additional hour of deliveries to take place outside the neighborhood peak traffic patterns and reduce congestion and interference with the local traffic. The permit response is expected to be received this period. If granted, the intention is to continue to permit deliveries during this timeframe through to completion of the Arena.
There's certainly a logic, from the construction standpoint, since it would speed work. However, given that trucks can be noisy, and have idled in the neighborhood before official delivery hours, such a change could lead to significant disruption in the lives of neighbors.
That plan was not disclosed in the Final Environmental Impact Statement.
Posted by eric at 1:28 PM
Atlantic Yards Watch: Tracking Daily Impacts
Urban Omnibus
by Norman Oder
In April 2006, recognizing how blogs had sprung up in response to the controversial Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, The New York Times suggested the development “may well be the first large-scale urban real estate venture in New York City where opposition has coalesced most visibly in the blogosphere.”
More than five years later, Atlantic Yards continues to provoke web innovation, with the advent of Atlantic Yards Watch, not a platform for opposition but a self-described “community-based initiative to protect the health and livability of neighborhoods” impacted by the now-under-construction Barclays Center arena and the planned 16 towers. While the arena is the only project building under construction, demolition, utility and railyard work continue, as well as construction staging and development of a massive surface parking lot.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, From Urban Omnibus: Atlantic Yards Watch: Tracking Daily Impacts
Posted by eric at 1:07 PM
Incident Report Saturday documents steel deliveries to Barclays Center that ignore ESDC's published truck regulations and appear to violate NYC law
Atlantic Yards Watch
Another day, another example of Forest City's utter disregard for the law.
The video above from Saturday shows a Barclays Center construction-related truck disobeying both NYC traffic laws and the ESDC's published truck rules on Pacific Street between 6th Avenue and Carlton. The truck crosses the 6th Avenue intersection while the north/south traffic on 6th Avenue has a green light, attaches a load waiting in the travel lane and then drives against traffic to block 1129.
This one truck trip is part of a series of steel deliveries on Saturday that were not consistent with either the Barclays Center Truck Rules and Requirements made public by the ESDC, or NYC traffic law.
Posted by eric at 12:28 PM
August 1, 2011
Concrete Workers Strike at Atlantic Yards
The workers picketed in front of the site as part of a citywide concrete strike.
Park Slope Patch
By Kristen V. Brown
For the second time in less than a week, on Monday morning construction workers rallied outside the looming Barclays Center construction site.
About half of the 25 union concrete workers from the Atlantic Yards site picketed at the site entrance at Sixth Avenue and Pacific Street, joining a citywide strike that members of the Cement and Concrete Workers District Council have threatened ever since the contract covering the workers expired on July 1.
Since then, cement workers have continued work at the Atlantic Yards site without a contract, pouring the site’s concrete floors, but today they said “enough.”
“We’re going to stand out here as long as it takes,” said one union member, who declined to give his name due to fears of retaliation. “They don’t want to let us work for a decent wage.”
Posted by eric at 10:46 PM
Citywide concrete workers strike affects Atlantic Yards arena; job action apparently delays pouring of superstructure concrete
Atlantic Yards Report
Hmm, maybe Forest City will (need to) hire some of those guys protesting at the arena site last week after all.
A long-threatened citywide strike of concrete workers began this morning, including picketers at the Atlantic Yards site, thus apparently stalling some critical work on the arena, notably the pouring of superstructure concrete.
About a dozen workers picketed, and a representatives said they were about half the 25 union concrete workers at the site, down from a peak of nearly 50.
It was the second job action in less than a week outside the gate to the Barclays Center site at Sixth Avenue and Pacific Street, Last week, in an unrelated event, mostly non-union workers condemned the lack of local hiring and contracting.
Forest City Ratner may have special interest in ensuring that the strike gets settled, or an agreement is reached with the contractor for this job site. The arena, unlike an office residential building, must open by the fall of 2012 for the NBA season. (As of now, it's ahead of schedule, but weather and unpredictable events such as strikes could cause delays.)
Posted by eric at 2:21 PM
July 28, 2011
Signs stating sections of Carlton Avenue and Pacific Street will be closed July 30-31 and August 6-7 from 8 am to 4 pm are incorrect; there will be no closures this weekend
Atlantic Yards Watch
Atlantic Yards Watch has corrected the street-closing information it posted earlier today.
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The new temporary closures were due to renovations on the Newswalk building, not Atlantic Yards. Apparently, the closures have been suspended for this upcoming weekend because the contractor failed to meet public notification requirements. When further information is available, it will be posted here.
NoLandGrab: We're sticking with our original theory, however — Bruce Ratner is throwing neighborhood residents the block party to end all block parties. In fact, it's likely to be a superblock party.
Posted by eric at 11:56 AM
July 27, 2011
The mound at Dean Street and Carlton Avenue is finally "slimed" with green protective covering
Atlantic Yards Watch
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Yesterday, roughly a month after a mostly uncovered large mound of dirt appeared on block 1129, an incident report to this site reports "the mound was "slimed" with green stuff." The green stuff is presumably a protective covering to inhibit dust.
The photographs submitted with the report show one portion of the mound still covered with plastic and another with a slightly unnatural green hue.
Early this month this site reported that improper custodianship of the mound appeared to violate numerous commitments in the Amended Memorandum of Environmental Commitments. Since that time, ESDC has told this writer they continued to "reprimand" the contractor to ensure the dust pile is covered or wetted frequently, and that they requested an air monitor be placed near the pile to ensure air is not compromised.
Posted by eric at 11:55 AM
Complaints about extended hours work continue, and new sources of construction noise at night and on weekends may be on their way
Atlantic Yards Watch
A wonderful night's sleep, brought to you by the letters F, C and R.
Complaints about late night and after hours construction work continue to reach this website. The video above, (which reached this site indirectly), was filmed at 1:30 am at the intersection of 5th Avenue and Bergen Street.
Complaints about permitted late night work on the project date back to the extended infrastructure work that took place on Dean Street and Flatbush Avenue in 2008 and caused substantial discomfort to many living in the vicinity. The earliest illegal after hours work inside the footprint dates to the spring of 2007, only a short time after work on the project began.
The sources of the complaints relate to an expanding list of types of work scheduled at night and on weekends. The affected residential areas are dispersed throughout the perimeter of the 22 acre project site.
In the meantime, new potential sources of late night noise may soon be added.
Posted by eric at 11:15 AM
This weekend, extended work at the Atlantic Yards site related to the removal of underground storage tanks
Atlantic Yards Report
According to a Supplemental Report to the Empire State Development Corporation's previously issued two week Construction look–ahead regarding July 18-July 31, 2011, extended work--on evenings and weekends--will be needed to remove underground storage tanks from a former gas station at the eastern end of the site, near Pacific Street and Vanderbilt Avenue.
Posted by eric at 9:58 AM
July 26, 2011
"Isolated incident"? Two more instances yesterday (and one today) of trucks leaving Atlantic Yards site with contents uncovered, violating environmental commitments memo
Atlantic Yards Report
OK, it's time to shut this construction site down until they can demonstrate even the smallest shred of competence.
Though the Empire State Development Corporation last week suggested that a truck leaving the Atlantic Yards site with its contents uncovered--a violation of an environmental commitments memo signed by developer Forest City Ratner--was an "isolated incident," the evidence is mounting that it wasn't.
Yesterday I wrote about how there appear to have been three additional episodes last week.
Beyond that, the incidents continued, as new photos were posted on Atlantic Yards Watch yesterday morning and afternoon, as well as this morning.
Click thru for yet more photographic evidence.
Posted by eric at 11:42 AM
Meeting Held About Atlantic Yards Rodent Problem
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
The Eagle has landed... on this story a couple weeks behind everybody else.
Last week, Councilwoman Letitia James, representatives from Councilman Steve Levin’s and state Senator Velmanette Montgomery’s offices and other community leaders met with representatives of the Empire State Development Corp., city agencies and Forest City Ratner Companies (FCR) at a meeting in Brooklyn.
The meeting’s focus was on rodent infestation, which has become a serious concern in the Atlantic Yards footprint and surrounding community.
Recently, neighbors of Dean Street near the Atlantic Yards project have reported cat-size rats and an uptick in the rat population. Many have expressed concerns about the rodent population’s increase in the neighboring homes and streets surrounding the construction site.
Many people say that rats have not been a problem until the arena’s construction, while others have referred to it as a “rat tsunami.”
Posted by eric at 11:25 AM
July 25, 2011
Three more instances last week in which trucks drove off railyard site with contents uncovered, violating agreement regarding dust suppression measures
Atlantic Yards Report
If the people building, and supporting the building of, Atlantic Yards are too dumb or lazy or uncaring to properly cover a dump truck, how do we expect them to manage far more complex challenges like traffic and parking?
OK, the Empire State Development Corporation told me that a July 19 episode, in which a dump truck existed the railyard site without any tarp over the dirt, "appears to be an isolated incident."
However, as posted on Atlantic Yards Watch and in the photos below, on July 18 there were three separate instances in which trucks approached or left the railyard site with their contents uncovered. The trucks are on Pacific Street between Sixth and Carlton avenues.
All instances violate the December 2009 Amended Memorandum of Environmental Commitments, a contract in which Forest City Ratner "shall require its contractors to implement dust suppression measures....
Click thru for photographic evidence.
Posted by eric at 12:37 PM
July 23, 2011
From Atlantic Yards Watch: a truck leaves the railyard site, gets wheels washed for dust, but dirt remains uncovered; state calls it "isolated incident"
Atlantic Yards Report
As reported by a sharp-eyed Prospect Heights resident on Atlantic Yards Watch, on 7/19/11, at 1:20 pm, a dump truck leaving the railyard site got its wheels washed, but exited without any tarp over the dirt.
That violates the December 2009 Amended Memorandum of Environmental Commitments (text below), a contract signed with the Empire State Development Corporation [ESDC).
Official response?
Yesterday I queried the ESDC regarding what steps or penalties might be taken in response.
"ESD and its consultants are aware of the issue, which appears to be an isolated incident," responded spokeswoman Elizabeth Mitchell. "We have made clear our expectation that these project requirements be strictly enforced to reduce the possibility of violations and have been assured of increased attention to this matter."
That sounds like: if you do it again, we'll slap your wrist, but you're OK for now.
The truck heads out
The wheels are washed
The truck exits, uncovered
Posted by steve at 10:05 PM
July 22, 2011
Latest consultant's report: arena still ahead of schedule (but lingering schedule issues?), 320 workers on the job (fewer than FCR's report)
Atlantic Yards Report
According to the latest Arena Site Observation Report, dated 6/30/11 and based on a 6/1/11 visit, based on cash flow, the Barclays Center remains is one month ahead of schedule and the transit connection remains two months ahead of schedule.
The report is prepared by Merritt & Harris, the real estate consultant to the arena PILOT Bond Trustee.
There are a few items that should provoke further inquiry, such as a discrepancy between the number of workers reported and the number reported by Forest City Ratner, and a discrepancy regarding the percentages of minority- and women-owned contractors.
Those discrepancies might be explained by a report from the Independent Compliance Monitor (ICM) required by the Community Benefits Agreement, but no ICM has been hired.
Also, there may be a lingering dispute about the schedule.
Posted by eric at 10:16 AM
Working the overnight shift at the arena site: questions posed (and pending), but Final EIS disclosed possibility
Atlantic Yards Report
So, will there be a first-ever third shift at the Atlantic Yards site? If so, why? And what kind of safeguards would there be?
I haven't gotten answers yet.
Questions posed
The latest Construction Alert issued on July 18 by the Empire State Development Corporation (and prepared by developer Forest City Ratner) indicates that "subject to receipt of permits, a third shift may be instituted during this reporting period, from 11 PM – 7 AM, Monday – Friday only."
(There have been no previous third shifts for arena construction, but there have long been some disruptive overnight shifts regarding utility work at the boundaries of the project. For example, see this video.)
Some readers asked me about this, so I queried the Empire State Development Corporation about it, and was told to ask Forest City. (The ESDC said in June that working a second shift "ensures maximum productivity.")
So I asked the developer for the rationale for the third shift, and the safeguards planned.
And I asked the Department of Buildings if a permit had been granted, and what safeguards would be required.
Both sets of queries are pending.
Posted by eric at 10:03 AM
July 19, 2011
Rats on the run at Atlantic Yards?
The Brooklyn Paper
by Daniel Bush
Rat-plagued residents of Prospect Heights will get relief from the rodent infestation caused by the Atlantic Yards project — courtesy of the developer himself.
Bruce Ratner’s company announced last week that it would reimburse residents for rat-proof garbage cans in response to criticism from neighbors who claim that construction of the Barclays Center arena has spawned a booming, out-of-control rodent population that is feasting on unprotected sidewalk trash.
“It’s a good step, but it’s one piece of the puzzle,” said Peter Krashes, president of the Dean Street Block Association.
...But Tracy Collins, who lives on Dean Street between Sixth and Carlton avenues, said he’s worried that the problem will return once the Barclays Center starts welcoming throngs of basketball fans — and the litter they leave behind.
“It’s going to last for who knows how long,” he said.
Posted by eric at 9:17 AM
Barclays Tours Intended to Amaze
NetsDaily
The Nets fan site wallows in its warped triumphalism.
In the latest tour of Barclays Center, Bruce Ratner tells the Times, "Sometimes I look at it and I am amazed we all got there." That is of course the point of the tours that are now weekly or even more frequent. Despite impediments, and the Times lists them all, there is now evidence, in bright orange hues, that it's all very real, amazing actually.
The arena' critics can complain about the dust or the "rat tsunami" or the illegal parking or revel in their (limited) court victory last week, of which the Times takes its first notice. Doesn't matter much.
NoLandGrab: "Amazing?" It's a basketball arena. That's turning your neighborhood upside down. But at least fan-bloggers are happy.
Posted by eric at 9:09 AM
July 18, 2011
Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet focuses on rats; FCRC commits to providing vouchers to residents for garbage cans
Atlantic Yards Watch
Speaking of community complaints...
The Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet Thursday, July 14th was largely dedicated to the rodent problem in the vicinity of the project. At the meeting Forest City Ratner committed to providing community residents a voucher to get a free garbage can.
More details of the program, including the type of can and the specific area the program will be available, will be made public in a week or so.
In addition, at the instigation of Council Member Letitia James, the NYC Department of Health, the NYC Department of Sanitation and ESDC Project Director Arana Hankin are working together to identify a strategy to address the full range of problems in and around the project site.
Posted by eric at 7:16 PM
From the latest Construction Alert: more late shifts (and a possible overnight one); new dispatch center, dust control seem responses to documented complaints for trucks
Atlantic Yards Report
The latest two-week Atlantic Yards Construction Alert, dated 7/18/11 and embedded below, contains several things worth noting, including mention of a possible third (overnight) shift at the arena site, plus two mitigation measures that seem to be responding to recently documented community complaints.
Posted by eric at 7:12 PM
July 13, 2011
Video and photography show dump trucks lining Pacific Street between 6th and Carlton this morning
Atlantic Yards Watch
Video and photographs showing dump trucks lining Pacific Street between 6th and Carlton Avenues were attached to incident reports submitted to this website this morning.
The two videos, titled "5:45 am Atlantic Yards/FCR no flaggers + illegal idling," and the photographs show a line of trucks waiting underneath the 170 unit Newswalk building to enter one of the Barclays Center truck entrances at Pacific Street and 6th Avenue.
The trucks are lining up on the wrong block of Pacific Street. The video and photography illustrates an ongoing problem long brought to the attention of ESDC and FCRC. If the protocols outlined in the Barclays Center Delivery Truck Rules and Requirements for the use of a flagger at Carlton Avenue and Pacific Street are not kept, the public Pacific Street between Carlton and 6th Avenues quickly becomes an extension of the construction site. The goal of the use of a flagger in this location is to avoid trucks lining up on this block.
The complaint details the trucks lining up for an hour beginning at 5:45 am, and the photos contain time tags placing them between 6:10 and 6:37 am. NYC law allows idling for no more than 3 minutes. Construction hours for the Barclays Center begin at 7:00 am.
NoLandGrab: Is it possible that everyone building this mess, from the ESDC and Bruce Ratner down to the guys filling and driving dump trucks, are just a bunch of incompetent dumbasses?
Posted by eric at 11:22 AM
Yet two more documented incidents this morning serve as a reminder proper construction practices have to be implemented at all times
Atlantic Yards Watch
An uncovered dump truck apparently transferring sifted dirt from block 1129 travelled down Pacific Street this morning. Dump trucks are supposed to be inspected to ensure they are covered before they leave the work site.
 |
Posted by eric at 11:16 AM
Renewed union contracts did not address modular construction, but that's not seen as blocking modular towers at the Atlantic Yards site
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder reports on a recent post by "union radical Gregory Butler, on his Gangbox News blog":
I asked Butler if that meant no modular [construction] at Atlantic Yards--which would include subsidized units and luxury units--and he said no.
"As far as there being a broader move, that didn't happen," Butler said. "But if [Ratner] pushes it, it's almost certain to happen. They've never stopped people from doing prefab."
Related coverage...
Gangbox News, Unshared Sacrifice
Posted by eric at 11:07 AM
SHoP Architects' Gregg Pasquarelli Understands More Than Anyone Else, Almost
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
SHoP Architects' Gregg Pasquarelli, the guy who rendered the traffic-less George Foreman grill at the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush, gave a talk recently. He must love irony as much as Bruce Ratner does:
Are Architects Performance Artists? A Conference Addresses "Performativity"
By Jonathan Liu. New York Observer"We understand more than anyone else on the job site," Gregg Pasquarelli told a second-floor conference room one recent Thursday evening inside the New School's Arnhold Hall.
His audience peered at him through a remarkable selection of eyewear—surely the most impressive array of cantilevers, arches and trusswork west of the East River. "We truly do," he reiterated. "We know more than the developer, we know more the contractor, we know more than the inspector, we know more than the guy installing something. We know a lot about all the stuff. It's the integrator and the communicator role that's the most important thing: We don't build buildings, we make instruction sets for buildings."
...Well, with all of his highfalutin, self-congralutory archy-speak, surely Mr. Pasquarelli also understands he is in bed with an ethically challenged developer, designing an ethically challenged project. Doesn't he?
Related coverage...
NY Observer, Are Architects Performance Artists? A Conference Addresses ‘Performativity’
We don't know if architects are performance artists, but some of them — especially those involved with Atlantic Yards — sure seem to be pseudo-intellectual blowhards.
Posted by eric at 10:38 AM
July 12, 2011
As Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting approaches Thursday, Atlantic Yards Watch keeps track
Atlantic Yards Report
I got an email this morning from a Prospect Heights resident telling me--without detail--that construction on the Atlantic Yards site was continuing at 12:30 a.m.
The second shift at the arena site is only supposed to go to 11 p.m., however. I suggested that she contact Atlantic Yards Watch, which has a link for reporting incidents. It's unrelated to this blog--which is aimed at reportage, analysis, and commentary--and set up to maintain an archive of reports.
In fact, Atlantic Yards Watch stands as a daily response to those, like the Empire State Development Corporation's Arana Hankin, who say they're not sufficiently informed of community complaints.
A few of the latest are below, concerning parking and dust.
AY District Service Cabinet
Every two months--it used to be three--representatives of developer Forest City Ratner, the ESDC, the three affected Community Boards, city agencies, and others meet at Borough Hall for a meeting of the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet.
The meeting this week is Thursday at 9:30 a.m. The meetings are open to the public and press, but, curiously enough, not advertised. Nor is videotaping permitted.
Visitors cannot ask questions but questions, including community complaints, can be submitted beforehand via the Community Boards, elected officials like Council Member Letitia James (who's generally the only person to publicly challenge the developer/state), and the Borough President's Office.
Posted by eric at 10:33 AM
Dust for workers and possibly the community from work in the railyard today
Atlantic Yards Watch
Dust from excavation and trucks in the railyard is visible in this photo submitted with an incident report today. Dust suppression measures are supposed to be put in place in order to protect air quality for workers on the project and the community nearby. The Amended Environmental Commitments Memo states:
FCRC shall require its contractors to implement dust suppression measures including the following:
iii. Watering unpaved surfaces, including haul roads and excavation faces. All unpaved haul roads and excavation surfaces shall be continuously watered by watering trucks or constant misting, so that surfaces remain damp at all times when in use during construction. Gravel cover shall be applied to unpaved surfaces which are regularly traveled."
Photo: AtlanticYardsWatch
Posted by eric at 10:26 AM
Correction: At the Atlantic Yards site (and others), a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) would have averted a strike
Atlantic Yards Report
I wrote July 1 that a last-minute pact averted a citywide strike of construction workers, citing news reports that indicated a strike could have stopped work at the Atlantic Yards site.
Not so. The arena construction, and the rest of the work, is governed by a Project Labor Agreement (PLA), which, as Gary LaBarbera, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York (BCTC) reminded members, includes a no strike/no-lock out clause.
Here's a list of such projects.
As one commenter on the Local157 blog pointed out, informational picketing would be permitted.
Posted by eric at 9:46 AM
July 11, 2011
The Day: Barclays Center Progress
The Local [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill]
by Susan A. Rohwer
NY1 recently took a tour of the Barclays Center and the project’s residential tower with developer Bruce Ratner who talked about the construction progress. According to the piece, Mr. Ratner says things are on schedule for an opening next summer. Brownstowner also weighed in, citing a story by The Times from March that reported that the developer must start excavation on the tower by May 2013 “or pay up to $5 million in penalties for every year it falls behind.” There was no update on whether or not the tower will be prefabricated, as The Times reported in the March article.
Related coverage...
Brownstoner, Ratner Talks Atlantic Yards ETAs
Posted by eric at 12:29 PM
July 10, 2011
A rather strange sign at the corner of Dean Street and Sixth Avenue: 620 Atlantic Avenue
Atlanitc Yards Report
This is the northwest corner of Dean Street and Sixth Avenue, the home, as of spring 2010, of Freddy's Bar & Backroom and other buildings.
And now
Below is what it looks like now, shot from a somewhat closer perspective. (The construction fence takes up the sidewalk.)
Why does the construction fence bear the address of 620 Atlantic Avenue, which is two blocks to the north and one block to the west (and the former address of the Underberg Building)? Because that's apparently the official address of the arena under construction.
Posted by steve at 5:37 PM
July 9, 2011
Atlantic Yards Watch Tracks Parking Mess
Photos show locations and strategies for illegal construction worker parking on July 7th
The following photos show the locations and strategies of Atlantic Yards construction workers who park illegally in the vicinity of the project. All of these photos were taken between 1 pm and 2 pm on Thursday, July 7th.
...
Is it a funeral director or an iron worker? If it is a construction worker he or she has found an inventive way to get around parking regulations. This car was parked in a no standing zone on 6th Avenue immediately adjacent to the Barclays Center site.
Construction workers piggyback on the illegal parking of city employees associated with the NYPD 78th Precinct, FDNY 105 Ladder Company and HPD in the vicinity of the 78th Precinct. This is possible due to the apparent selective parking regulation enforcement of the NYPD in the area around the precinct.
Numerous 311 complaints from community members have been filed at this website about the issue. The pattern of the dispositions of the 311 complaints seem to show the police not finding a problem at the time they go to the locations reported in the complaints. In one case in which the disposition stated the police had corrected the problem, follow up from the filer showed the problem still in place.
Construction workers park illegally on sidewalks, in bus lanes and ignore parking regulations on Pacific Street, 6th Avenue, Dean Street and Atlantic Avenue. An estimated 20 to 30 construction worker cars parked illegally in the immediate area daily during the work week. Free parking for up to 40 construction worker cars is already provided inside the footprint by FCRC to construction workers on several locations on block 1129 and at the former location of the Carlton Avenue Bridge between blocks 1121 and 1120.
...
The Amended Environmental Commitments Memo details "FCRC shall provide on-site parking for construction workers at levels appropriate in light of the number of workers employed at the site during different stages of construction, to a maximum of 800 spaces. FCRC shall monitor the work force levels throughout the construction period and shall report to ESDC on a quarterly basis as to the number of on-site spaces and the utilization of such spaces. The parking facilities shall have perimeter fencing and shall be accessible only during work hours. Parking fees at rates comparable to commercial off-street facilities in the surrounding area shall be imposed for these spaces. FCRC shall consult with and obtain the approval of ESDC, such approval not to be unreasonably withheld, prior to reducing the number of construction worker spaces at the Project site as the number of workers changes and permanent parking locations within the Project site become available for construction worker parking."
At a joint meeting of the Dean Street Block Association and Carlton Avenue Association on June 28th covering traffic and pedestrian issues, the ESDC and FCRC responded to complaints about illegal construction worker parking by saying a formula is being used to determine when the commitments detailed above are to be put in place.
The formula apparently associates FCRC's obligation to meet their commitment to provide construction worker parking, with the availability of on-street parking in the vicinity of the project as outlined in a study from 2005 included in the project's FEIS. The ESDC and FCRC committed at the meeting to providing this formula to the meeting organizers.
During the meeting the ESDC and FCRC said the formula shows not enough workers are on site to necessitate the creation of a construction worker parking lot. This seems contradicted by the fact construction workers are creating their own illegal on-street parking spaces instead of parking in the available spaces the environmental analysis from 2005 says should exist, and that FCRC is already providing free parking.
It may be the case the free parking FCRC is providing on site for construction workers may not conform to, or even violates, what is outlined in the Amended Environmental Commitments Memo. FCRC is meant to provide parking at rates commensurate with nearby parking garages in order to avoid creating an artificial incentive for workers to drive to the site.
If FCRC created parking for a fee and the NYPD provided parking regulation enforcement, the illegal construction worker parking would likely significantly diminish.
Posted by steve at 6:08 PM
Signs for FCRC's Community Liaison Office are posted along the perimeter of the site
Atlantic Yards Watch
On Thursday signs identifying the location of FCRC's Community Liaison Office were posted along the perimeter of the project site. The signs do not include the hours the office will be open.
This follows a statement by Rachel Shatz of the ESDC that FCRC is in violation of the Amended Environmental Commitments Memo at a joint meeting of the Carlton Avenue Association and Dean Street Block Association on June 28th. At the meeting Brigitte LaBonte, FCRC's Community Liaison, stated that she is on site one or two days a week.
The commitments in the memo state, "FCRC shall maintain an on-site construction coordinator to function as a liaison between FCRC and the community with respect to construction-related issues. The coordinator shall be available to consider specific concerns raised by the community with respect to the construction issues and seek to resolve such concerns."
Amy Sara Clark of Prospect Heights Patch and Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report both highlighted Shatz's statement in their coverage of the meeting. In Clark's coverage FCRC promised change and said that the developer would have at least one person on site during working hours.
At points in the project, FCRC has described the Community Liaison as a "capacity" the company has rather than a person.
Posted by steve at 6:06 PM
Lots of Parking Coverage
PIX 11, Atlantic Yards Double Parking Double Standard
By Monica Morales
The new Barclays center currently under construction in downtown Brooklyn is attracting illegal parking and bogus parking placards, complain long-time residents on Dean St.
"It's a double standard. Construction workers are getting away with illegal parking. They just put their orange vest on the dashboard and they don't get a ticket," said Peter Krashes, the President of the Dean St. Block Association.
PIX11 News found signs warning the illegal parking would be punished, but no sign of any tickets being distributed. PIX11 news found a parking placard on Atlantic Avenue for a funeral director.
"I think that is hilarious. Too bad the guy didn't take off his union sticker, that he is a construction worker," laughed Krashes.
The N.Y.P.D. spokesperson has said in the past, "Individuals found violating the parking restrictions in the area maybe subject to disciplinary action."
Calls to the Empire State Development Corporation, the state agency that oversees the project, were not returned.
Fox, NY, Parking Violations Around Atlantic Yards Site
By Ti-Hua Chang
Parking signs by the Atlantic Yards arena construction site say "No Standing Anytime." But the cars parked there do not have tickets.
The special passes, a day-glow vest on the dash letting police know the car belongs to a construction worker, police union cards, made-up placards of iron worker, and even funeral director.
A local resident took pictures of what he says are construction worker cars tripled parked on "No Standing" streets, cars blocking fire hydrants, and cars blocking people on the sidewalk -- yet not a parking ticket in sight.
The activist group Transportation Alternatives says it found 83 cars parked illegally without tickets. The group argues police have selective enforcement.
Paul Steely White, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives, says cops don't ticket "their own" and other classes of people they have sympathy with, such as other union employees and construction workers.
The police department responded: "This is a false accusation from a special interest group."
But people in neighborhood say the illegal parking is out of control and no one wants to do anything about it.
The developer, Forest City Ratner, and New York's Empire State Development Corporation acknowledge an illegal parking problem exists around the construction but don't say what specifically they will do about it.
A spokesman for the developer said: "We have instructed contractors to tell their employees to obey all parking regulations. We've also spoken to NYPD about the issue."
The only tickets we did see were on cars parked by police spots by the police precinct one block away.
News 12, Atlantic Yards neighbors fuming over illegal parking
Residents who live near the Atlantic Yards construction site say they're fed up with cars parking illegally in the area.
They say construction workers blatantly ignore signs that forbid stopping, standing or parking along Dean Street. Parking rules, they say, are rarely enforced there.
Some cars in the area have police placards visible in their windshields. Local residents, however, point to a recent study by a transportation group that found many placards in the construction zone to be fraudulent.
Concerned neighbors have launched a website to document parking violations and other troubles they say the construction project is causing.
Posted by steve at 5:50 PM
July 8, 2011
MTA says upgraded Vanderbilt Yard is on schedule, but won't specify whether Forest City completed required construction documents by June 2011 deadline
Atlantic Yards Report
So, is the replacement Vanderbilt Yard--smaller, but modernized, and part of a 2009 deal to save Forest City Ratner significant sums--on schedule?
Yes, says the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), but it looks like there are some question marks.
The requirements
According to page 7 of the MTA Staff Summary regarding the revised 2009 Vanderbilt Yard deal, Forest City Ratner was supposed to complete "100% Improved Yard construction documents by June 2011."
"Do you know if that has occurred?" I asked the MTA. "And, if so, does that mean that the permanent railyard is on schedule?"
"The project is on schedule," MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan responded. "Design and construction are being fast-tracked in stages, with North Portion of Permanent Yard already in construction."
Lingering questions
That didn't quite answer my question, so I followed up two days ago by asking if the documents had been completed. I also asked yesterday if there was a timetable for finishing the upgraded railyard.
I didn't get an answer, which leaves me wondering: Is Forest City changing the rules? In other words, is it moving ahead with the railyard but has not completed the construction documents?
I'd say it's a reasonable bet.Updated: I got an answer this morning from Donavan: "I don’t know about the documents. The overall status is that permanent yard design and construction are being fast-tracked in stages to advance the overall development. The north portion of the permanent yard design was completed and construction started in January 2011, ahead of the required construction commencement deadline of June 30, 2012."
That's pretty confusing. The MTA should know.
Posted by eric at 12:11 PM
NY1 Exclusive: Barclays Center On Track To Open Next Summer
NY1
by Jeanine Ramirez
About half of the steel is now in place at the Barclays Center, as NY1 saw on a recent tour with developer Bruce Ratner.
"You see the piece all the way in the back — it's called the truss — that's going to be the beginning of the top of the arena,” said Ratner.
The roof is scheduled to be completed by winter. Many of the stands are already in place. It’s a dream finally becoming reality for Ratner, who has been planning to bring the Nets to Brooklyn since 2006.
"For all of us, it's a big whoosh moment,” said Ratner. “Something that's been long in coming."
NoLandGrab: The "whoosh" is actually the giant sucking sound of all the subsidies Bruce is collecting from the taxpayers. And Bruce has been "planning to Bring the Nets to Brooklyn" since 2003 — he had promised they'd be playing in Brooklyn in 2006.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, AY down the memory hole: NY1 reports Ratner's planned to bring the Nets since 2006
"It's the kind of access no one else has gotten," says NY1's Jeanine Ramirez self-congratulatingly, introducing a progress report headlined Barclays Center On Track To Open Next Summer.
(She lets Ratner wax enthusiastically about his deal with the Brooklyn Academy of Music, paying no heed to Michael Galinsky's essay, Don’t Let Atlantic Yards Developers Control the Narrative.)
Posted by eric at 10:58 AM
July 7, 2011
Canadian truck carrying prefabricated Barclays Center seating blocks local street's bike lane while idling
Atlantic Yards Watch
A Canadian truck carrying prefabricated Barclays Center seating blocked the Dean Street bicycle lane at Vanderbilt Avenue for over an hour last night. The truck was headed to block 1129 where the seating is stored before being installed in the arena.
According to the local resident who supplied the video above, he first encountered the truck in the location shown in the video around 6:00 pm. The video was filmed over an hour later when he returned from dinner. At both times the truck was idling and sitting in the same place in the bicycle lane.
The truck was apparently violating NYC law. Not only is Dean Street not a NYCDOT designated truck route, in NYC trucks are only allowed to idle for 3 minutes. Blocking a bicycle lane is also not allowed.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Video from Atlantic Yards Watch: idling Canadian truck carrying arena seating, improperly using Dean Street, blocks bike lane for an hour
The need for an Atlantic Yards ombudsman--er, community relations manager--remains, as Prospect Heights residents continue to notice apparently improper construction activities.
Shouldn't someone official be proactively responding, telling us, You're wrong, this isn't a problem, or Thanks for pointing this out, we're taking action so it doesn't happen again?
Posted by eric at 11:27 AM
July 5, 2011
Barclays Center Revealed
A monthly photo essay documenting the construction of the Atlantic Yards development and the Barclays Center, which the Brooklyn-bound New Jersey Nets will soon call home.
Park Slope Patch
By Kristen V. Brown
The Barclays Center is now truly flying up—in the past month, the sides of the basketball arena that the Brooklyn-bound New Jersey Nets plan to call home in the 2012-2013 have been revealed, with almost all of the steel frame now in place. The concrete slabs that will make up the arena seating has begun to go into place. In the next two months, as installation of the façade kicks into high-gear, what was once merely a collection of steel girders and cranes will reveal the shape of the arena.
Photo: Kristen V. Brown
Posted by eric at 11:28 PM
Construction Update: Forest City and contractor Hunt are "considering" helping more with rat abatement
Atlantic Yards Report
From the two-week Construction Update (embedded below), dated 7/4/11, prepared by Forest City Ratner and distributed by the Empire State Development Corporation:
Hunt [Construction] and FCRC have reviewed and are considering actions to supplement the site and adjacent neighborhood’s rodent protection activities. Hunt has more than 225 rodent bait stations within the area work site and Block 1129 that are being monitored and maintained.
The issue, however, is the "rat tsunami" outside the project site. The developer has been pressured to do more and previously said it was considering doing so. Given that rat sightings proliferate, as I've been told, residents seek a solution sooner rather than later.
Posted by eric at 11:12 PM
July 3, 2011
Barclays Center contractor Laquila regularly sends trucks down local streets and passed Dean Playground
Atlantic Yards Watch
Illegal Atlantic Yards contructions truck on Dean from tracy collins on Vimeo.
In the last week construction trucks have been sighted regularly on Dean Street between 6th and Vanderbilt Avenues. A resident of Carlton Avenue from Dean to Pacific Streets also states trucks have lined up there early in the morning.
The trucks on Dean Street largely appear to be associated with Laquila, a contractor working on Barclays Center. Many trucks are loaded with gravel and travel past Dean Playground, down Dean Street to Vanderbilt, turn left on Vanderbilt and left again into the former Pacific Street. They may be delivering gravel to a site on block 1129 where the gravel is sifted and loaded back on trucks.
According to a driver interrupted mid-trip at the intersection of Dean Street and Carlton Avenue on Friday July 1st, no information has been provided to Laquila drivers about the routes to take from the arena block.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Watch, Lack of clarity about truck routes, rules and requirements may lead to unnecessary impacts for the local community
Besides recent complaints about truck traffic on Dean Street, this website has received multiple truck related complaints in the last two weeks including a flat bed truck idling twice in two consecutive days on Pacific Street between Underhill and Vanderbilt Avenues and cement trucks lining Dean Street between 5th and Flatbush Avenues. Another complaint located a stationary truck near an accident at Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues.
Lack of clarity about truck routes, rules and requirements may lead to unnecessary impacts for the local community. Current Barclays Center Delivery Truck Rules and Requirements [PDF] rule out queing anywhere except Pacific Street from Vanderbilt to Carlton.
For months the truck requirements on the ESDC website have been out of date, and the information in the construction alerts released every two weeks has had little useful relationship to the actual configuration of truck entrances around the perimeter of the project.
Posted by eric at 6:48 PM
Does mostly uncovered mound of dirt on Block 1129 violate ESDC's Memorandum of Environmental Commitments?
Atlantic Yards Report
The Amended Memorandum of Environmental Commitments for the Atlantic Yards project states that "all stockpiled dry materials (e.g., sand, aggregate) shall be water-misted; sprayed with non-hazardous, biodegradable suppressing agent; covered; or otherwise enclosed." It also states "loading of any dry material which may release dust from trucks shall be accompanied by manual water spraying of the material," and that "a washing station shall be constructed for all truck exits."
However, according to Atlantic Yards Watch, none of these commitments appear to be met in the case of a mostly uncovered mound of dirt on block 1129 close to homes.
Posted by eric at 9:43 AM
July 1, 2011
Last-minute pact averts city-wide construction strike, avoids jeopardizing arena construction; was feared strike why double-shift construction began?
Atlantic Yards Report
Though no one admitted it, maybe it was the threatened--and just-averted--strike that led Forest City Ratner to go to double-shift construction at the Atlantic Yards arena site last month.
With contractors' and developers' concerns about construction costs driving discussion of contract renewals, a strike loomed today had not various construction unions agreed to renew contracts that expired yesterday--but a strike was averted as time nearly ran out.
The AP, via the Wall Street Journal, reports:
New York City crane operators have averted a strike after negotiations went down to the wire.
Louis Coletti of the Building Trade Employers Association says two unions representing crane operators, excavators and maintenance engineers agreed on a new contract late Thursday, less than two hours before their contracts expired.
Work could have been halted at World Trade Center sites and a new basketball arena in Brooklyn.
Other unions reached agreements earlier in the day, according to Crain's New York Business, but the operating engineers--from whom significant concessions were sought--control the cranes and thus are essential to any site progress.
Posted by eric at 11:35 AM
June 29, 2011
The Battle for Brooklyn: Deconstructing the Unions
The Icehouse Gang
by Kevin Baker
Unions in this country have historically raised the living standards of all Americans, but they’ve also done much, much more than that. No other major institution—certainly not the business community—has been as consistently altruistic, as supportive of causes that are not directly beneficial to itself, as the labor movement.
...Not so much New York’s construction unions.
Sad to say, much like construction unions all over the United States, and for many decades now, the construction trades here have insisted on blindly supporting pretty much every single building project, no matter how awful an idea it is, and no matter who is going to be hurt by it.
...Is there a project in your neighborhood that’s oversized, woefully ugly, dependent upon tearing down beloved local buildings, or threatening to destroy your community altogether? Don’t worry, New York’s construction unions are in favor of it, just so long as they can spend a few weeks or months flooding your community with workers who mostly don’t live there and won’t have to deal with the consequences.
...By supporting the whole “pro-growth agenda” right down the line; by remaining bastions of white privilege, by pretending that there won’t always be sufficient construction activity in New York if they don’t endorse every single, odious land grab that comes along, the construction trades systematically undermine all attempts at building a better, more just, more sustainable New York.
And in the end, predictably enough, they screw over themselves as much as anyone.
Posted by eric at 10:00 AM
The Good News About the Bad Construction News
NY Observer
by Tom Acitelli
The Building Congress yesterday came out with an understandably bleak construction report showing sluggish growth during the Great Recession in new office space, among other things, and not holding out too much hope for the rest of 2011. This year, in fact, will mark the first since 2000 with no new office tower opening.
...It could have been worse, much worse.
One of the reasons it was not: New York City did not overbuild commercially during the boom.
...Had that not been the case–had the last decade been one of barn-burner construction–vacancy rates could have been a lot higher, rents a lot lower, and, eventually, construction financing and jobs that much harder to come by. Why build more when there are empty towers everywhere? (Ever been to downtown Detroit?)
The city may as yet get its chance to have overbuilt, with the World Trade Center construction and the proposed Hudson Yards; and lesser commercial undertakings like Columbia’s West Harlem expansion and whatever finally, maybe, comes up commercial-wise with Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at 9:38 AM
June 28, 2011
Rats! Atlantic Yards site is full of rodents
The Brooklyn Paper
by Kate Briquelet
Neighbors of the Atlantic Yards project say that freakish, cat-sized rats coming from the construction site are invading their homes, gnawing on their cars, eating through garbage cans, and climbing up their legs.
...Residents blamed the infestation on developer Forest City Ratner’s construction work in the Vanderbilt Yards, which will house the Barclays Center for the Brooklyn-bound Nets next fall.
Locals want developer Bruce Ratner to set bait beyond the perimeter of the construction site and buy high-neck metal garbage cans for their streets. Such cans are about $500 apiece, a minor expense for a developer of a $4.9-billion project. For instance, buying 20 of them would be a microscopic 0.0002 percent of the project’s cost.
A company spokesman would not comment on the trash receptacles, but said that the company has had a rodent control plan in place for two years that involves hiring an exterminator and setting and checking bait traps.
NoLandGrab: And that "rodent control plan" appears to have worked as well as their "opening-the-arena-in-2006 plan" and their "world-class Frank Gehry-design plan," among others.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Brooklyn Paper: DOH says bait applications for rat problems around arena site have jumped
The headline's a bit off, since the dispute is over whether Forest City Ratner will take control measures outside the site perimeter. But the newspaper did add some statistics that bolster the ample anecdotes:
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said that the department saw an increase in 311 complaints and increased its exterminations significantly in the ZIP codes on and near the project.
The department increased its bait applications from 190 in fiscal year 2010 to 313 in 2011 for the area directly around the arena.
To the east of the arena, bait applications jumped from 179 in 2010 to a whopping 501 in 2011.
Atlantic Yards Watch, Council Member Letitia James joins irate residents in demanding action on rat problem from State, City and Forest City Ratner
A list of of approximately 30 problem locations was assembled collectively during the meeting. Besides those already reported on this site like Dean Street, 6th Avenue and Carlton Avenue, other locations included St. Marks Avenue, Park Place, Bergen Street, Greene Avenue, Pacific Street/Bears Garden, and South Portland.
Posted by eric at 11:00 AM
June 25, 2011
Atlantic Yards Rat-O-Rama
New York Times, In Brooklyn, the Rats Move Out Before the Nets Move In
By Liz Robbins
Residents living in the shadow of the Atlantic Yards arena project in Brooklyn shared horror stories on Thursday evening about cohabiting with rodents, and in the telling the rats seemed to grow to Godzilla-like proportions.
...
The problem, residents say, has been getting worse in the last several months as the arena for the Nets basketball team, the centerpiece of Atlantic Yards, has been rising. “We don’t have a normal rat problem,” said Karen-Ida Scott, 55, who lives on Dean Street, “we have a rat tsunami.”
...
No one from Forest City Ratner, the developer of the project, was there. On Friday, a spokesman for the developer, Joe DePlasco, issued a statement: “We have had a rodent control plan in place for over two years, beginning long before construction started. We are working very closely with Empire State Development and will continue to revisit the program to assess the impact. We will also continue to work with other parties, including the M.T.A., Department of Health and elected officials to address the issue.”
Fort Greene Patch, Blamed on Atlantic Yards construction, rodent sightings are on the rise, residents say.
By Amy Sara Clark
Stirred up by the digging at Atlantic Yards, rats have been a problem mostly for Prospect Heights residents, with the rodents eating through garbage cans and insulation in cars, boring through front doors and even climbing up one woman’s leg as she sat in her backyard, residents said at a meeting between area residents and city officials Thursday night.
“We don’t have a normal rat problem, we have a rat tsunami,” said one Prospect Heights woman. “I can look out in the middle of the day and see my trash cans outside my window overflowing with rats.”
Gothamist, Atlantic Yards Unleashes "Rat Tsunami" On Downtown Brooklyn
Russian billionaires and bleak buildings aren't the only things the Atlantic Yards project is bringing to Brooklyn: the construction is reportedly stirring up a large rat colony, some of which are "the size of cats." At a recent meeting to address the issue, two Downtown Brooklyn residents said that the rats got into their cars' engine blocks, "leaving behind chicken bones and aluminum foil, all the while chewing on the wires." One neighbor tells City Room, "We don't have a normal rat problem, we have a rat tsunami."
In addition to the normal displacement of rats that occur during such massive construction, the workers on the construction site have "increased the amount of garbage in the area," which in kind brings more rats. A rep for Forest City Ratner, the developer of the Atlantic Yards project, didn't show up to the rat meeting and told the paper that they "have had a rodent control plan in place for over two years," and that they're working on the problem. Maybe they can afford some easy-on-the-eyes Frank Gehry-designed rat traps?
Atlantic Yards Report, Forest City Ratner tries damage control on issue of rat infestation as Times and Patch follow up (updated)
Both Patch and the New York Times covered the meeting on rats last night (my coverage here). Both articles show Forest City Ratner scrambling to address an issue for which they likely have significant but hardly full responsibility.
Posted by steve at 9:03 PM
June 24, 2011
Strike threatens $10B in construction projects
If operating engineers man picket lines when their contracts expire June 30, construction across the city will halt, idling more than 11,000 workers, according to a survey. It's happened before.
Crain's NY Business
by Daniel Massey
The 2012 Brooklyn Nets might yet be the New Jersey Nets.
With a contract deadline a week away, a survey of developers has found that a work stoppage by operating engineers could silence construction on private-sector projects worth nearly $10 billion and temporarily idle more than 11,300 workers.
With the operating engineers' union contracts set to expire June 30, the Real Estate Board of New York survey shows that work could stop on commercial and retail projects spanning more than 13 million square feet and on residential sites totaling more than 6,300 units.
Projects that could be halted include Forest City Ratner's Barclays Center in Brooklyn, which employs 1,000 construction workers.
Either half of those "1,000 construction workers" must have invisibility cloaks, or Crain's needs to count again.
Posted by eric at 5:01 PM
An avalanche of rat complaints: eating garbage, car insulation, infesting houses and backyards; agencies pressed to move faster; CM James says she's "shocked"
Atlantic Yard Report
If anyone thought that complaints about rat problems in the area around Atlantic Yards were isolated carping, they could hear an avalanche of anecdote tonight at a contentious meeting that drew a diverse crowd of 60 people, many from beyond the orbit of the sponsor Dean Street Block Association.
"We don't have a normal rat problem, we have a rat tsunami," observed Dean Street resident Karen-Ida Scott.
Others described a car catching on fire from food debris dragged into an engine by rats, garbage cans torn up, kids unable to play in the Dean Street Playground, and rodents appearing, alarmingly, inside houses and on people lounging in backyards.
"I now park in Park Slope," recounted John Martinez, aiming to save his car's insulation from regular rat attacks. "If gets any further, I'll have to take a cab to my car."
Others lodged complaints from as far away as Fort Greene.
"I was shocked," commented Council Member Letitia James (left, standing), who organized the meeting, held at the Soapbox Gallery on Dean Street between Carlton and Vanderbilt Avenues. "The magnitude of the problem is astonishing. It requires immediate action."
Related coverage...
threecee via flickr, 2011 DSBA Rodent Meeting
Posted by eric at 11:05 AM
Rats invade Brooklyn neighborhoods around the Atlantic Yards
WPIX
by Kaity Tong
As difficult as it may be, we'll forgo any Ratner/rats puns, since the rat invasion of the neighborhoods around Atlantic Yards is a serious problem.
Posted by eric at 10:56 AM
Atlantic Yards Drill Glitch Causes Rock Shower, Injures Two
Seven cars were also damaged after a spray of packed earth and stones hit Atlantic Avenue.
Prospect Heights Patch
by Amy Sara Clark
The Atlantic Yards project has showered the people of Brooklyn with tons of stress, anger and frustration, but on Tuesday the site literally showered them — with golf ball-sized chunks of falling debris.
Two people were injured and seven cars damaged after a drilling accident on the site of Forest City Ratner's mega project caused rocks, packed earth and construction debris to rain down on pedestrians and cars outside of the Atlantic Yards construction site yesterday morning.
...Officials are still looking into exactly what caused the drill to malfunction. In the meatime, Forest City Ratner has halted drilling while a larger shield is installed on the drill that is designed to contain flying debris.
NoLandGrab: Perhaps Forest City could convert the drill into a lethal killing machine that shoots debris at the rats that are overrunning the neighborhood.
Posted by eric at 10:00 AM
June 23, 2011
Drill accident at Atlantic Yards site damages eight cars, injures a few people; contractor must submit safe work plan; problems with drill not new
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder has a statement from the ESDC regarding yesterday's drilling accident on the Atlantic Yards site — the second construction accident resulting in injuries this week.
Empire State Development Corporation spokeswoman Elizabeth Mitchell offered more detail:
Yesterday morning a drill rig became clogged that was working inside the construction fence at Vanderbilt & Atlantic Avenues. When attempting to unclog the casing spoil jam, built up pressure caused debris to spew into the street. Eight vehicles incurred minor damage, mostly on their wind shield, roof, hood, and trunk. Three people claimed to have been directly hit by debris. Emergency services were called immediately. One man was not visibly injured, but was transported to the hospital.
The construction manager ordered the contractor to stop work, and the contractor was directed to submit a safe work plan for approval prior to being allowed to proceed with drilling. This safe work plan includes both an improved physical barrier in the form of a heavy hoist-able screen with a support crane, and by preparatory action by contractor personnel, such as clearing the sidewalk and curb lane, in the event of another casing spoil jam requiring the use of compressed air.
Posted by eric at 4:48 PM
Drill spews dirt into Vanderbilt Avenue injuring two and damaging seven cars
Atlantic Yard Watch
Thomas Tracy reports today in the Brooklyn Paper that a drill driving piles immediately adjacent to Vanderbilt Avenue in block 1121 "sent egg-sized chunks of packed dirt and small stones raining down on unsuspecting pedestrians and commuters at the corner of Vanderbilt and Atlantic Avenues on June 21- leaving two injuries and more than seven damaged cars."
The drill in question is of the same type and doing the same type of work reported to be spewing dust several months ago on this website. These types of drills at the site have been the source of community complaints for some time, particularly for the dust and noise they cause. A video in our report from April 6th shows a malfunctioning Casagrande drill spewing dust one block west from the most recent incident.
Posted by eric at 2:49 PM
Accident injures two and damages cars at Atlantic Yards
The Brooklyn Paper
by Thomas Tracy
A drill accident at the eastern end of the biggest construction project in Brooklyn’s history sent egg-sized chunks of packed dirt and small stones raining down on unsuspecting pedestrians and commuters at the corner of Vanderbilt and Atlantic avenues on June 21 — leaving two injuries and more than seven damaged cars.
Witnesses said they heard an explosion at around 10:30 am as a hydraulic drill malfunctioned, sending dirt and rocks flying into the air.
“I heard this loud sound, but I didn’t know where it was coming from,” said motorist Yahya Alshemi, who was caught under a wave of mud pies. “Then rocks and dirt started falling all over my car.”
Chunks of dirt blanketed Alshemi’s car for nearly two minutes. One hunk slammed his windshield, causing it to spider web.
...Two people suffered light injuries, officials said. One person was sent to a local hospital with a slight head wound. The other was treated at the scene — the former BP station at the corner of Atlantic and Vanderbilt avenues.
The pile driving at the site is expected to continue for two months as part of developer Forest City Ratner’s infrastructure work on the Long Island Rail Road’s Vanderbilt Yards. The company — which is currently building the Barclays Center to house the Brooklyn-bound Nets — did not return calls.
Posted by eric at 10:47 AM
June 22, 2011
Who's responsible for garbage (and, likely, rats) in and around the Atlantic Yards site? Lots of people/agencies, but someone needs to knock heads
Atlantic Yards Report
A photo essay on Atlantic Yards Watch, headlined Many failures to contain garbage in the vicinity of Atlantic Yards can be seen in photos, shows several potential sources of food for rodents inside and in the vicinity of the Atlantic Yards Project footprint.
Those responsible include residents, visiting workers, Atlantic Yards site overseers, and city agencies.
I reproduce the first few below, but let me add a conclusion: if construction workers and police officers park illegally, thus contributing to the problem, and if the police won't enforce those rules, someone needs to knock heads.
That someone would seem to be the Empire State Development Corporation, which has overall responsibility for the project.
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Posted by eric at 1:40 PM
June 21, 2011
A meeting to address the rodent problem will take place June 23rd
Atlantic Yards Watch
At Council Member Letitia James' initiative, a meeting addressing the rodent problem in the vicinity of the Atlantic Yards site is to take place this coming Thursday.
Many residents believe construction at the Atlantic Yards site is the origin of the problem, through a combination of disrupted nests, neglected abatement and new food sources. Sources for food and water that sustain the rodents are also available in the nearby residential community, most particularly as a result of improperly contained garbage. The problem cannot be addressed unless the many contributing factors are addressed.
Time: Thursday, June 23rd, 6 to 7 pm
Place: Soapbox Gallery, 636 Dean Street (please note this is a new location)
Sponsors: Council Member Letitia James, Dean Street Block Association, 6th Avenue to Vanderbilt
Invited: NYC Department of Health, NYC Department of Sanitation, Empire State Development Corporation, Forest City Ratner Corporation
All are welcome. Tell your friends and neighbors.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Meeting on rodent problem in blocks near AY site to be held June 23 at 6 pm
Brownstoner, Closing Bell: Rats! A Meeting About Rodents Near AY
Posted by eric at 2:25 PM
June 20, 2011
An ambulance at the Atlantic Yards site; worker injury described by ESDC as "slight"
Atlantic Yards Report
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An ambulance was spotted this morning at the Atlantic Yards site at about 8:40.
"There was a slight injury," reported Empire State Development Corporation spokesman Warner Johnston in response to my query. "A backhoe operator (substitute for today) for subcontractor to Transit Connection contractor bumped his head on window shield while going over rocky ground. Apparently cut his forehead and there was bleeding –ambulance called. Individual was able to walk to ambulance under own power."
(Photo by Raul Rothblatt)
In April, the arena site was chosen by the city Department of Buildings (DOB) to illustrate the importance of Construction Safety Week not because it's been the site of major problems but rather as a site where there's been good communication between workers/managers and the DOB.
NoLandGrab: Good to know the injury wasn't serious. Brooklyn may not be so lucky
Posted by eric at 11:30 AM
June 17, 2011
NYC Unions Agree to 20% Wage Cut On Manhattan Residential Project
Local 157 blogspot
by Carolina Worrell
Key unions in New York City, including laborers and structural trades, agreed to a 20% wage cut yesterday, June 15 for work on Gotham West, a residential development on Manhattan’s West Side that will consist of four buildings and about 1,240 residential units, according to a recent article in Crain’s New York Business.
...Following Gotham’s lead, developer Forest City Ratner Cos. has submitted an application for a labor agreement to build a residential tower, part of the first phase of its mixed-use Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn.
...A Forest City spokesperson said it is “too premature” to say why the company applied for the agreement.
NoLandGrab: We'll take a wild guess that they applied for the agreement because they can't afford to build otherwise.
Posted by eric at 9:54 AM
June 15, 2011
Unions agree to wage cut on major project
Reduction of 20% pledged for construction of over 500 affordable-housing units at planned block-long project on Eleventh Avenue; similar deal eyed for Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards.
Crain's NY Business
by Theresa Agovino
New York construction unions have reached an agreement to cut the wages of members working on a massive residential project on the far West Side by 20%, sources said. The project, which will include more than 500 units of affordable housing, is being developed by the Gotham Organization Inc.
Meanwhile, Forest City Ratner Cos. has applied to the unions for similar wage cuts as it prepares to begin construction of its first residential tower at the long-planned Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. There, at least 50% of the approximately 400 residential units will be affordable.
...Spokesmen for the Building & Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, a union trade group, and Forest City declined to comment. Gotham President David Picket couldn't immediately be reached.
NoLandGrab: Bruce forgot to mention when he promised "jobs" that they would be cut-rate.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Modular plan or pressure tactic? Forest City said to be asking for 20% wage cuts for first Atlantic Yards residential tower
This confirms that, as I've suggested, the announced modular construction option has been used as a negotiating tool.
The New York Times, Squeezing Costs, Builders Take New Look at Prefab
Now, with an emphasis on materials conservation and reuse, and developers looking to squeeze costs any way they can, modular construction is getting a closer look.
Often the word prefab conjures images of inexpensive and poorly built structures like trailer homes. But proponents of prefab, many of whom shudder at the moniker, say that modular design done well is anything but cheaply built. A modularly constructed building uses the same materials as a traditional one. But because it is made in a factory, workers are not battling the elements and can construct it more soundly and with less waste, proponents say.
And less wages, proponents don't say.
“Is the technology there to do it? Yes. Is the desire? Yes,” said Christopher Sharples, a principal at SHoP Architects, which is designing a possible 34-story prefab tower for the developer Forest City Ratner at Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn. “In the near future, I think people are going to become more educated about what the potential of this approach could be.”
Posted by eric at 10:20 AM
June 13, 2011
Arena construction work this week will go on second shift, to 11 pm
This will be updated when I hear more from the ESDC.
Atlantic Yards Report
Though the Atlantic Yards arena is, according to a consultant working for the bond trustee, a month ahead of schedule, the Empire State Development Corporation today announced at 3:32 pm that this week there will be a second shift of construction work, from 3:30 pm to 11 pm.
Work will include:
- Support activities for foundation work
- Spray fireproofing at the Event Level and other levels
- Sheet metal installation at the Event Level
- Plumbing installation at the Event Level
- Miscellaneous electrical rough in and electrical support activities.
According to the ESDC, no materials will be trucked off site and there will be no concrete pours during this period--in other words, less traffic.
While deliveries will be staged for prior to 6pm, there may be some small box truck type deliveries after 6pm.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Watch, Arena block work hours to be expanded until 11 pm
A supplemental construction alert today announces that for the week of June 13, 2011 there will be a second shift of construction work on the arena. The additional hours of the work will be 3:30 pm to 11 pm.
The alert states the work will include excavation, reinforcing of steel installation, truck elevator pit wall forms and numerous other activities.
In addition it states that with a few exceptions deliveries will be staged prior to 6 pm. Site access will be through both the Dean Street and Pacific Street gates.
Posted by eric at 11:05 PM
June 10, 2011
Latest consultant's report: arena still ahead of schedule, 360 people on the job in April
Atlantic Yards Report
According to the latest Arena Site Observation Report, dated 6/2/11 and based on a 4/28/11 visit (and documents made available 5/23/11), based on cash flow, the arena project is one month ahead of schedule and the transit connection two months ahead of schedule.
The report is prepared by Merritt & Harris, the real estate consultant to the arena PILOT Bond Trustee.
While "substantial completion" is anticipated by 8/27/12, the Developer is still reviewing the schedule and is working with Hunt Construction to reach an agreement, according to the report. A resolution was expected by May 2011. (Note that a resolution on that schedule has been expected since December.)
On the job, 360 people?
While the previous report, dated 5/4/11 and based on a site visit 3/24/11, stated that "240 persons have been on the job this month," based on manpower logs, the new report put the number at 360 in April.
In May, according to Forest City Ratner officials reporting at the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting, there were 500 workers on site.
NoLandGrab: We still find cash flow a really odd way of measuring construction progress. What if they're just over budget? As for the jobs, we can say with confidence that the numbers promised by Forest City will never, ever materialize — with or without modular construction.
Posted by eric at 10:01 AM
Prefab—Future or Farce for New York’s Buildings?
NY Observer
by Matt Chaban
In the past, The Observer has looked at the potential for the city to revolutionize its construction practices through prefabricated buildings. It’s been a dream of architects and builders for nearly a century, almost since the first Model-T rolled off the line, but it has had limited impact on construction in the country, and almost none whatsoever in New York.
But that changed when Bruce Ratner began pursuing a prefab tower for Atlantic Yards, which at 32 stories would be the largest such structure in the world. It gets very much at the issues brought up today, namely labor costs, because not only are the materials for prefabricated building cheaper, but less skilled laborers are needed to produce the projects.
Our pal Norman Oder asked a question of the panel about the prefabulous building in question, and the response from Jeff Levine, chairman of Douglaston Development, was telling. “It should act as a warning bell,” he said. “Just as our elected officials are telling us that the high cost of oil is beneficial to alternative sources of energy, whether it be wind or nuclear. But the reality is, we cannot build the perfect cost scenario, as evidenced by the lack of product going up. Having said that, alternatives are being sought. At some point, if it’s not non-union, then it’s modular. A solution will be found. We have to live somewhere.”
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Modular construction and Atlantic Yards: legitimate tactic or feint? At the least it's a harbinger, given concerns about construction costs
The New York Observer's Matt Chaban beat me to coverage of my own question at a panel on the cost of construction in New York City, in which I asked if Forest City Ratner's reported effort to consider modular construction is a legitimate tactic or a feint to coax union concessions.
...I had informal conversations with some other attendees, and they leaned more to confirming my thought that Ratner's announced effort--called a "research project" by a Ratner executive--was closer to brinksmanship, just as Ratner halted construction midway through the Beekman Tower to renegotiate terms with the unions.
But, as they say, time will tell.
Posted by eric at 9:39 AM
June 9, 2011
Drilling at Vanderbilt Yard
raulism via YouTube
NY State wants to get access to the property in this video via eminent domain.
Posted by eric at 5:14 PM
Barclays Facade Mock-Up On Display
Curbed
by Sara Polsky
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ATLANTIC YARDSVILLE—A tipster passing by the corner of Pacific and Carlton the other day noticed this mock-up of the Barclays Center facade: "The mockup shows a conventional facade with nearly black panels behind the just-for-show rain-screen that returns to reveal the glass portions." And speaking of Atlantic Yards, the next screening of Battle for Brooklyn will be held
tomorrow nighttonight in Fort Greene park.
NoLandGrab: Tracy Collins had this news more than two weeks ago.
Photo: Curbed
Posted by eric at 9:39 AM
June 7, 2011
At Barclays Center, Stadium Seating Has Arrived
A monthly photo essay documenting the construction of the Atlantic Yards development and the Barclays Center, which the Brooklyn-bound New Jersey Nets will soon call home.
Park Slope Patch
by Kristen V. Brown
Photo: Kristen V. Brown/Park Slope Patch
Posted by eric at 12:21 PM
June 2, 2011
Ratner Seeking $100 Million for Apartment Tower at Atlantic Yards Site
Bloomberg
by David M. Levitt and Betty Liu
The developer of the Atlantic Yards project in New York’s Brooklyn borough plans to borrow about $100 million to construct an apartment tower near the basketball arena now going up on Flatbush Avenue.
Work should start on the apartment building in December or January, Bruce Ratner, Forest City Ratner Cos. chairman and chief executive officer, said today in an interview on Bloomberg Television. The tower would join the Barclays Center sports arena as the second structure at the $4.9 billion, 22-acre project in downtown Brooklyn.
“We’ve already talked to banks and we will be able to get a loan,” Ratner said.
NoLandGrab: We'll believe construction of any Atlantic Yards housing when we see it, not when Bruce predicts it. And for the millionth time, the project is not in downtown Brooklyn.
Posted by eric at 8:54 AM
Harlem Sales Ranked; Artists, Help to Beautify Atlantic Yards
Curbed
by Sara Polsky
The Atlantic Yards construction site has already gotten one shot at beautification through Urbancanvas, but, well, it could use another. ArtBridge has issued a call for entries from Brooklyn-based artists with "visual works that riff on, reveal, or reference the artistic process." Entries are due by June 26, and some of them will be displayed on the Flatbush Avenue scaffolding on Atlantic Yards' south side.
Posted by eric at 8:49 AM
June 1, 2011
Atlantic Yards Construction Brings Out The Rats; Neighbors Complain
WPIX
by Mario Diaz
In the shadows of the Barclays Center there is an invasion of new tenants overwhelming a quaint neighborhood like gangbusters. However, some residents along Dean Street are referring to it more as a “complete rat infestation.”
People in the neighborhood say the attacks began when construction started on the Barclays Center as well as the development surrounding it. “We didn’t have all these rats before. Sometimes you see them lying on the streets,” said one area resident.
...PIX11 did see plenty of rats on flyers being distributed on cars belonging to construction workers in the area. One resident who refused to be identified told us that since the construction workers are not obeying alternate side of the street parking, the streets not being cleaned, thus the rats have more garbage to feast upon and the infestation only becomes greater.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Watch, Atlantic Yards rats make TV news
Mario Diaz of PIX11 caught up Friday with several of Atlantic Yards' neighbors concerned about the increasing number of rats infesting the streets surrounding the project.
Posted by eric at 9:59 AM
May 31, 2011
Is the law finally going to be enforced in relation to illegal construction worker parking on Pacific Street?
Atlantic Yards Watch
The NYPD has posted "no parking" signs on Pacific Street from the Newswalk parking garage to 6th Avenue on Pacific Street for Tuesday, May 31st.
Are the police finally going to crack down on the illegal construction worker parking on Pacific Street that regularly occurs on sidewalks and in no standing zones in this location? There are no signs on the 6th Avenue bridge which is also a regular source of free and illegal parking for Barclays Center construction workers.
As has been commented on by community members on this website, the illegal parking in this location has regularly blocked sidewalks and the travel lane, as well as made street cleaning impossible. It has also contributed to a sense that parking regulations in the area are enforced selectively.
NoLandGrab: We thought all the jobs were going to people from the neighborhood. Why would anyone need to drive?
Posted by eric at 1:21 PM
May 26, 2011
Barclays Center Construction Progressing At Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards
CBS New York
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The Barclays Center is the biggest piece of the Atlantic Yards complex and is under construction right now in Brooklyn.
NoLandGrab: Actually, the Barclays Center seems to be the only piece of the Atlantic Yards complex, though we're expecting a giant parking lot, too.
Photo: Tom Kaminski / WCBS 880
Posted by eric at 5:34 PM
May 24, 2011
When arena opens in 2012, Building 2 still under construction; despite predictions, it doesn't look like another tower will be under way by then
Atlantic Yards Report
According to the Arena Traffic Mitigation Plan prepared by Sam Schwartz Engineering and distributed yesterday by the Empire State Development Corporation, Building 2 (highlighted), the first housing tower, is expected to be under construction when the arena opens in September 2012.
As the gray outline in the graphic suggests, the location for Building 4, at the northeast corner of the arena block, is demarcated, but it's unclear when the building will go up. And a bicycle parking facility will occupy part of the space designed for Building 3.
(Click on graphic to enlarge and clarify)
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Schedule slipping
Why is this important? Because in September 2010, Forest City Ratner executive MaryAnne Gilmartin said, "We anticipate having funding in place to start the first building at Dean and Flatbush in the spring of 2011, the second six to nine months later, and the third about the same time after that."
Not only has the first tower been delayed, it doesn't look like the developer aims to get the second building started within six to nine months.
Posted by eric at 11:42 AM
May 23, 2011
If there are 500 workers at AY site, how does that compare to official projections? Well, 1000+ jobs were promised to last over three years
Atlantic Yards Report
There are 500 workers at the Atlantic Yards site, Forest City Ratner officials said last week, though there's no independent confirmation.
The total is difficult to trumpet since it’s so much smaller than the numbers promised, I wrote, prompting one observer to wonder: if the promised construction job figure was 10,000 job years (or 1000 jobs over ten years), wouldn't that mean that they are providing about half of the promised jobs?
Not at all.
Looking at the numbers
First, the current projected total is 17,000 job-years, up from the original 15,000. Those numbers, however, depend on a full build-out of the project, which is highly doubtful.
Second, the jobs were supposed to be concentrated in Phase 1, when the arena was under construction along with four towers. None of those towers is under construction as of now, and the first tower, Building 2, has been delayed and may be built via modular construction, which would significantly reduce jobs.
Posted by eric at 11:01 AM
From Tracy Collins: weathered steel facade mock-up visible at corner of Carlton and Pacific
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder covers Tracy Collins's posting of arena "skin" photos.
Yesterday, photographer Tracy Collins visited the southeast corner of Pacific Street and Carlton Avenue, where mock-ups of the Barclays Center weathered steel facade have been posted.
Note that the mockup panel delivery and placement of the footing was originally supposed to come in mid-March, but was delayed two months, and that arena subcontractors were described by a Forest City Ratner executive as behind on producing the pre-weathered steel.
Posted by eric at 9:57 AM
Barclays Center façade
Threecee via Fllickr
Carlton Avenue and Pacific Street Prospect Heights Brooklyn, New York
This appears to be one panels that will make up the rusted metal skin of the new Barclays Center Arena of Atlantic Yards.
Posted by steve at 4:45 AM
May 20, 2011
News from AY District Service Cabinet: Street changes, including Pacific St. reversal, coming in June, fireworks over rats, 60 workers from Brooklyn
Atlantic Yards Report
Get ready for more construction and previously announced changes on streets in the area of the Atlantic Yards project, starting next month, including the reversal of Pacific Street between Fourth and Flatbush avenues and a new left turn from Pacific to Flatbush, thus diverting traffic that formerly went north on Fourth Avenue.
That was the main takeaway from the third meeting of the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet, held yesterday at Brooklyn Borough Hall and involving representatives of various city and state agencies and community boards. Official notice of the changes is expected June 7, and a public meeting to describe the changes will be held June 14 at Borough Hall from 6:30 to 8 pm.
Another major issue at the meeting, one of the few flashpoints for tension, was raised by City Council Member Letitia James, who reported significant rodent problems at blocks around the site, though Forest City Ratner, pointing to a slippery slope of responsibility, said its responsibility was limited to the site itself.
There was no mention of timing for the much-promised affordable housing and a Forest City Ratner executive indicated the number of local workers is relatively small: 38 of 500 workers on site come from the three adjacent Community Boards, with a total of 60 Brooklyn residents on site.
Also, Forest City Ratner consultant Sam Schwartz inadvertently highlighted a likely problem connected to the arena surface parking lot planned for the block bounded by Dean and Pacific streets and Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues. He indicated that the sidewalks on Pacific Street leading to the arena site were large enough to handle crowds--but didn't acknowledge that the crowds are expected to use Dean Street, which has much narrower sidewalks.
Also, Forest City Ratner asserted that one of its Community Benefit Agreement partners, Brooklyn Endeavor Experience, was briefed and is distributing information on environmental issues, though there's no evidence that's happening.
...As Forest City Ratner consultant Sam Schwartz explained, construction of certain traffic mitigation measures required in the Final Environmental Impact Statement must begin in June, because they have only two construction seasons to get the work done before the arena opens in the late summer of 2012 and that work at the congested intersection of Atlantic, Flatbush, and Fourth avenues must be done on nights and weekends.
Pointing to the gridlock at that intersection, he said traffic planners decided to take the shortest leg, on Fourth Avenue going north between Pacific Street and Atlantic Avenue, out of circulation.
Thus, Pacific Street would be made one way eastbound, and drivers would have to do what the Brooklyn Paper dubbed the “Fourth-to-Flatbush Two-Step.”
Listening to Schwartz, Jon Crow, a coordinator of the Brooklyn Bear’s community garden at Pacific and Flatbush, shook his head. He later said he had no problem with the direction change, but thinks that allowing a left for traffic going north on Flatbush would create its own gridlock.
NoLandGrab: We're going to go out on a limb here and predict that the rerouting of northbound Fourth Avenue traffic to Flatbush via Pacific Street is going to be an epic disaster that will make the usual gridlock seem trivial by comparison.
Posted by eric at 11:53 AM
New Watchdog Site Will Keep Close Eye on Atlantic Yards
The Park Slope Civic Council, Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council and Boerum Hill Association have formed the Atlantic Yards Watch.
Park Slope Patch
by Kristen V. Brown
The Barclays Center arena is flying up at the intersections of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues – and the surrounding neighborhoods now plan to keep a very close eye on it.
On Wednesday, civic organizations from Boerum Hill, Park Slope and Prospect Heights announced that they had banded together to found Atlantic Yards Watch, a website which will closely monitor and chronicle the construction on the Atlantic Yards construction site, and its subsequent effects on the neighborhoods surrounding the mega construction project.
The organizations involved in the site – the Park Slope Civic Council, Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council and Boerum Hill Association – hope that the website will help address quality of life concerns that increasingly face residents in the neighborhoods surrounding the development.
Posted by eric at 11:28 AM
May 18, 2011
PRESS RELEASE: Brooklyn Civic Associations Launch Web Site to Monitor Impacts from Atlantic Yards Construction
Civic organizations in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Boerum Hill, Park Slope and Prospect Heights today announced the launch of Atlantic Yards Watch (http://www.atlanticyardswatch.net), a web site which will monitor ongoing construction and operational impacts from the Atlantic Yards project on surrounding communities. The largest single development in Brooklyn’s history, Atlantic Yards is unusual as a State-sponsored project that does not have dedicated public oversight.
“With construction in full swing and the Barclays Center expected to open in September 2012, local community members are concerned over the lack of transparency in identifying and resolving the many traffic, noise, air quality and safety issues associated with Atlantic Yards,” said Danae Oratowski, Chair of the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council. “By tracking concerns reported through its web site and the NYC 311 system, Atlantic Yards Watch will provide a centralized record of reported incidents and resolutions.”
In addition to submitting reports of construction and operational impacts, site visitors can also participate in discussion forums on quality of life and safety topics. “We’d like to see Atlantic Yards Watch become a resource for the Empire State Development Corporation, City agencies, and also Forest City Ratner,” said Michael Cairl, President of the Park Slope Civic Council.
The idea for the web site grew out of a study by a graduate class at Pratt Institute led by Professor Jamie Stein. The class researched public responses to projects in other urban areas, and proposed potential models for structuring a response in relation to Atlantic Yards. “Communities faced with large development projects having the potential to disrupt local life for decades have to find ways to effectively communicate risks, make recommendations to government authorities and developers, and ensure that proper disclosures are provided,” said Professor Stein.
“Atlantic Yards Watch is intended to address gaps in oversight that we hope will eventually be closed through the establishment of a local development corporation or authority that is accountable to the public,” said Howard Kolins, President of the Boerum Hill Association. “Until that entity exists, it’s critical to document the community’s experience with the impacts of the Atlantic Yards project.”
Posted by eric at 3:42 PM
Consultant says arena one month ahead of schedule, transit connection two months; what about the Carlton Avenue Bridge?
Atlantic Yards Report
According to the latest Site Observation Report, dated 5/16/11 and based on a 3/24/11 site observation, on the Barclays Center arena construction, produced by Merritt & Harris, consultants to the real estate lending and investment community, the arena is still ahead of schedule.
The report indicates that the arena is one month ahead of schedule, based on cash flow projections, and the Transit Connection to the Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street station is about two months ahead of schedule.
Note, however, as mentioned below, last month the substantial completion date and final completion date for the arena had been moved back.
According to the graphics below (click to enlarge), spending on the arena, and presumably work at the site, is expected to increase markedly in the next year.
Posted by eric at 10:38 AM
May 5, 2011
Cutting construction costs key to first Atlantic Yards tower; is modular option part of overall effort to get union concessions as contracts expire?
Atlantic Yards Report
There was some useful information in the sycophantic Real Deal profile article headlined Ratner's refute: Developer insists Atlantic Yards is moving forward (and critiqued here): the effort to control construction costs, whether via experimental modular construction or union concessions, is crucial to the developer's profits, and to the timing of the promised housing.
According to the article:
Profits from the planned residential buildings are "going to depend on where construction costs wind up," [Bruce] Ratner said.
[Maryanne] Gilmartin said the company has finished the schematic design phase of the project's first residential tower, a 400-unit building on Dean Street that will be 50 percent affordable units and 50 percent market rate.
The company is in the process of developing two separate possible designs for the building -- one modular, aimed at cutting costs, and one conventional. It expects to send contract documents out to bid on both designs in the "latter part of the year," Gilmartin said.
It's possible that the modular option is aimed as leverage to get unions to make project-specific concessions, as I've suggested. So the conventional design also would be aimed at cutting costs, though in a different way.
After all, Forest City Ratner famously halted work halfway through the construction of the Beekman Tower, then renegotiated union contracts to save money.
Posted by eric at 10:25 AM
May 3, 2011
Barclays Center Flying Up
A monthly photo essay documenting the construction of the Atlantic Yards development and the Barclays Center, which the Brooklyn-bound New Jersey Nets will soon call home.
Park Slope Patch
by Kristen V. Brown
The Barclays Center continues to fly up – now each week progress is obvious, the shape of the basketball arena that the Brooklyn-bound New Jersey Nets plan to call home in the 2012-2013 season more visible.
The majority of the arena’s foundation has been laid, with efforts now focused on erecting the steel frame of the arena itself. Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner expects to begin work on the façade as early as June. Demolition and excavation still continues on the Long Island Railroad/Vanderbilt Yard side of the site.
Photo: Kristen V. Brown/Park Slope Patch
Posted by eric at 11:05 AM
Bruce Ratner becomes slave driver, makes Barclays Center construction workers work longer and on Saturdays
The Funky Apple
by Nigel Chiwaya
You may not have noticed it, but the Barclays Center, future home of the New Jersey Nets, is coming along quite nicely on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. But apparently it’s not happening fast enough for Bruce Ratner, the project’s developer, as he’s set to make construction workers work longer hours and Saturdays for the next three months.
Posted by eric at 11:01 AM
May 2, 2011
Remember the "Reference or fantasy" post four years ago about the projected ten-year Atlantic Yards timeline? It was a fantasy
Atlantic Yards Report
[Re-published from] Monday, April 30, 2007
Reference or fantasy? The (projected) ten-year Atlantic Yards timeline
(Click to enlarge)
Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards is supposed to be completed in a decade, by 2016, according to the construction schedule (document at bottom) included in the Atlantic Yards Final Environmental Impact Statement issued by the Empire State Development Corporation.
Graphic designer Abby Weissman has combined elements of the construction schedule with the Atlantic Yards site plan. Time will tell whether it's a valid reference or a fantasy.
...As of 2011
Note that the construction schedule, proposed 7/10/06, was already out of date in 2007.
As the graphic indicates, all of Phase 1, west of Sixth Avenue, was supposed to be done by now. Instead, only the arena is under construction, with a planned late summer 2012 completion.
As of now, there's no timetable for any of the towers, completion of Phase 1 could take 12 years, and the project as a whole could take 25 years, according to the Development Agreement--and there are further loopholes for delays.
NoLandGrab: As we wrote earlier, yes, things are, um, completely on schedule.
Posted by eric at 12:19 PM
Buzzer beater! Ratner workers will toil longer, and on Saturdays, to get arena done
The Brooklyn Paper
by Gary Buiso
Work in and around the developer’s Atlantic Yards site on Atlantic and Vanderbilt avenues will stretch into Saturday for the next three months, and last longer during the weekday, according to an updated schedule released late last week by the Empire State Development Corporation, the agency overseeing the work.
Forest City Ratner spokesman Joe DePlasco said the $4.9-billion mega-project is proceeding “completely on schedule,” and the time changes reflect the fact the project is located above an active Long Island Rail Road train yard belonging to the adjacent Atlantic Terminal.
NoLandGrab: If by "completely on schedule," Joe DePlasco means "there's no timetable for completing the 90% of the Atlantic Yards project that's not the arena," then, yes, things are completely on schedule.
Posted by eric at 12:03 PM
April 29, 2011
ESDC announces extended working hours at the Vanderbilt Yard, beginning earlier, ending later, and adding Saturday work
Atlantic Yards Report
The Empire State Development Corporation yesterday distributed a Supplemental Report to its bi-weekly Atlantic Yards Construction Update, announcing extended working hours at the site, beginning earlier and ending later, and also introducing Saturday work for at least three months:
The following section has been modified to include new information:
Long Island Rail Road/Vanderbilt Yard/ Carlton Avenue Bridge
New Information: commencing on May 2, 2011, yard construction hours will be: 6am – 4:30pm. In addition, beginning on Saturday May 7, 2011, construction work will take place on Saturdays during the hours of 7am – 5:30pm for a period of at least three months. Work will consist of the installation of SOE [support of excavation] piles along the south side of the jobsite within block 1120 & 1121; along “the bump” on Block 1120 (Lots 19, 28 and 35) and near the former gas station on Block 1121, lot 42.
Click through to learn what the Atlantic Yards Environmental Impact Statement had to say about work hours.
Posted by eric at 11:03 AM
April 28, 2011
Deron Williams, Billy King Tour Barclays Center Site
NBA.com
Give the NBA credit for this — at least they locate the arena correctly in Prospect Heights, and not "downtown Brooklyn."
After lunch in Manhattan, Nets general manager Billy King and point guard Deron Williams traveled into Brooklyn's Prospect Heights neighborhood to visit the Barclays Center construction site. The visit marked the first for each of them, and the duo soaked up information from Forest City Ratner Companies and Hunt Construction Group officials, querying them about everything from layout and design to the planned parking situation. Walking down to what will eventually become center court of the new arena, you could see each of them begin to envision the future.
"It's cool to see the beams up," Williams said. "You hear about how it's going to look and how it's going to be finished. But it's good to come and see how the progress is. You can kind of start picturing it, what it's going to be like, see the layout of things. And it's good to see the area – I hadn't been to this area yet. It's different. This is in the heart of the city. It's kind of like the Garden. It's the same feel. It's special."
NoLandGrab: Must be all the new bars sprouting up that make the area feel "kind of like the Garden."
Posted by eric at 9:47 PM
Construction Spending Hits A 5-Year Low
The Wall Street Journal
by Joseph De Avila
Construction spending in New York City dropped 12% last year, falling to its lowest level since 2005, according to a new report.
Builders cut back on residential housing and office buildings even as the city's economy slowly began adding jobs again. Part of the drop last year was due to big projects like the new Yankee Stadium and Citi Field wrapping up in 2009.
The number of construction workers also fell by 8,900 to 111,800 in 2010. It's the fewest construction workers employed in the city since 2004.
...It would have been even worse if not for a few large projects, including the World Trade Center and the new basketball arena at the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn.
NoLandGrab: Yes, without Atlantic Yards, there would have been only 111,640 construction workers employed in 2010, rather than 111,800. Thank goodness we taxpayers have shoveled hundreds of millions of dollars into that project.
Related coverage...
WNYC Radio, Spending Slump Hurts NYC Construction Workers
Posted by eric at 9:36 AM
April 27, 2011
For Construction Safety Week, Department of Buildings leads visit to Atlantic Yards arena site; videos show perspective on construction
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder has a package of reports on yesterday's Atlantic Yards construction-safety event.
Yesterday, as part of Construction Safety Week and the "Experience is Not Enough" campaign, the city Department of Buildings (DOB) offered a tour to the press of the Barclays Center site, aiming to remind workers and others about safe construction practices throughout the city.
The arena site was chosen not because it's been the site of major problems but rather an a site where there's been good communication between workers/managers and the DOB.
...I shot a few videos. Below, Deputy Commissioner Eugene Corcoran of the Department of Buildings speaks to the press. (Yes, the audio is obscured because of the significant noise of the site and my imperfect equipment.)
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Before press tour of arena site, community concerns about oversight, responsiveness, District Cabinet schedule
Before the press tour yesterday of the Atlantic Yards arena site held by the Department of Buildings (DOB), Peter Krashes of the Dean Street Block Association distributed a sheet reminding reporters about the need for effective oversight of the project, such as a governance entity, common with other large projects.
He was not targeting the DOB but rather the Empire State Development Corporation, which has overall responsibility for the project.
Atlantic Yards Report, Two walks near the Atlantic Yards site: Sixth Avenue (below Flatbush Avenue) and Flatbush; Dean Street and Sixth Avenue
Yesterday, to document the street scenes near the Atlantic Yards arena site, I filmed two walks. Both show the intersection of residential, retail, and construction.
Posted by eric at 9:57 AM
Building Inspectors Tour Atlantic Yards In Brooklyn During Construction Safety Week
CBS New York
It’s Construction Safety Week. What better time for the city to showcase precautions in action at the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn?
How about never?
Buildings inspectors like Eyal Amos distributed posters, banners and orange bracelets to the hard hats at the Atlantic Yards project.
“We’re not here only to give them violations and what not, [but to] get them all going back home at the end of the day to their families. We don’t want to see people dangling, falling off the edge of the building,” Amos told WCBS 880 reporter Marla Diamond.
Amos said the inspectors visited the site each week.
“We’re trying to see that the workers themselves have a good practice, whoever needs to wear harnesses, whoever needs to have hard hats, people have the right equipment,” said Amos.
On Tuesday, Amos observed workers on the skeleton of the Barclays Center arena, which will become the home of the current New Jersey Nets basketball team.
“We want to see them tied off. We want to see them having harnesses on,” said Amos.
Related coverage...
A|N Blog, ATLANTIC YARDS UPDATE
With the exception of the World Trade Center, there’s probably no better place to call a press conference dealing with construction issues than Atlantic Yards. At the moment the controversial project practically guarantees a large press turnout. This Tuesday, the Department of Buildings used the site as a backdrop to launch a new safety campaign for the 7th Annual Workers Safety Week with a particular focus on getting workers to wear harnesses.
...But while DOB officials talked safety on the site, off site Dean Street Alliance president Peter Krashes complained that there were still problems for workers and neighbors. “If the community is affected, then the workers must be, too,” he said of dust and noise. “The problem with Atlantic Yards is there are holes in oversight by the Empire State Development Corporation.”
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Behind the Scenes at Arena Site: City Leads Tour
“This is the largest construction site currently in New York City,” said Eugene Corcoran, deputy commissioner for the Department of Buildings, leading a press tour through the arena site.
Accompanying the various reporters and photographers were officials of Forest City Ratner and Hunt Construction (the main contractor on the job), union workers and others.
...Teams from the DOB inspect the arena site once a week due to size and complexity, according to officials. Mark Gladden, construction manager at Hunt Construction, pointed out that the firm has worked on sports arenas throughout the U.S., including CitiField in Queens and AT&T Park in San Francisco. Many of its subcontractors are national subcontractors who follow jobs from town to town, he added.
...Both he and Bob Sanna, director of design, development and construction for Forest City Ratner, emphasized that the workers on the site are union members. At any given time, there are about 160 workers on site, Hunt said.
Posted by eric at 9:13 AM
April 26, 2011
Mockup of weathered steel façade panels for arena delayed two months, should be delivered in mid-May
Atlantic Yards Report
Remember how Forest City Ratner VP for Construction Bob Sanna said that arena subcontractors were behind on producing the pre-weathered steel for the Barclays Center exterior?
Well, another aspect of that project seems to be behind. According to the latest ATLANTIC YARDS CONSTRUCTION UPDATE, Weeks of April 25, 2011 through May 8, 2011, produced by Forest City Ratner and distributed by the Empire State Development Corporation:
The excavation and concrete footing placement for a long term but temporary visual mockup of the weathered steel façade panels has been completed at 752 Pacific Street. The mockup panel delivery and placement of the footing was originally expected to be completed during the reporting periods covering March 7th through March 25th, however the delivery has been revised to mid-May.
NoLandGrab: One man's "weathered steel façade" is another man's pile of rusty junk.
Posted by eric at 10:40 AM
April 25, 2011
On Tuesday, a Construction Safety Week visit to the Atlantic Yards site
Atlantic Yards Report
From the Department of Buildings:
Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri today announced the launch of the 7th Annual Construction Safety Week, a week-long series of events aimed at raising awareness about safe construction practices throughout the City. To kickoff this year’s events, the Department hosted a four-hour safety conference – Build Safe / Live Safe: An Inside Look at the Latest Construction Trends in New York City – at New York University in Manhattan today with more than 250 construction industry professionals to discuss new ways to improve construction operations, as well as specific trends identified in recent construction-related accidents. The Department also launched a new safety campaign, entitled “Experience Is Not Enough,” to encourage all construction workers to use proper fall protection, such as guardrails, harnesses and nets, while working on a job site.
Tomorrow is an Atlantic Yards visit:
On Tuesday, Department inspectors will visit the Atlantic Yards construction site in downtown Brooklyn, one of the largest ongoing construction projects in the City, and distribute posters, banners and bracelets to workers as part of the new safety campaign. Since 2008, 16 workers have lost their lives due to a lack of proper fall protection, including two fatal accidents earlier this year. In February, two workers, ages 49 and 51, were killed when they fell about 65 feet while installing a steel beam at a job site on West 83rd St. in Manhattan. Inspectors determined safety harnesses were on site at the time of the accident, but they were not being used.
Note that, despite the somewhat awkward phrasing, no workers have lost their lives at the Atlantic Yards site.
NoLandGrab: A number of people, however, lost their homes to the Atlantic Yards site.
Posted by eric at 10:38 PM
April 19, 2011
Forest City executive says shrinking arena to preclude major league hockey was conscious choice, downplays modular construction as "research project"
Atlantic Yards Report
So much for Nets CEO Brett Yormark's coy statements about how arena promoters would "would love the [New York] Islanders [hockey team] to play a couple of games at the Barclays Center."
It's long been suspected that the arena would be too small to accommodate major league hockey, and even a market analysis commissioned by Forest City Ratner stated that "the arena would need to be retrofitted to accommodate the ice-making abilities the NHL requires for its franchises."
Last week, Bob Sanna, Forest City Ratner Executive VP for Construction, told a Pratt Institute School of Architecture audience that, to design a smaller arena that could be financed, "we made some pretty deliberate decisions early on: we weren't going to have a [professional] hockey team."
He noted that, to make an ice floor, the seats move in one direction only, which doesn't make for good hockey sightlines.
That doesn't preclude some hockey games, just a season. The tight, smaller arena--675,000 square feet in the Ellerbe Becket (plus SHoP on the facade) design, opposed to 850,000 square feet in the original Frank Gehry design--furthers a focus on basketball.
Reality, of course, never prevented Yormark, Bruce Ratner and others from misleadingly dangling the notion of a resident pro hockey team during the process of selling arena bonds.
[Sanna] spoke as part of the Pratt Institute's spring 2011 School of Architecture Lecture Series. While Sanna's lecture, according to the promotion, was titled "Development as a Contact Sport," it was more a nuts-and-bolts description of the challenges faced by construction managers on such a project, and a class of would-be construction managers made up the bulk of the audience.
...What about the developer's modular plans?
Sanna again said it was a question outside the scope of his presentation but downplayed it as "an experiment... It is for all intents and purposes a research project."
If it's a research project, perhaps it's a negotiating ploy with the unions.
Or perhaps Forest City Ratner just isn't ready to tip its hand.
NoLandGrab: If history and Forest City Ratner executives teach us one thing, it's that nothing they say can ever be trusted.
Posted by eric at 10:59 AM
April 14, 2011
Confirmed: Atlantic Yards is Toxic
Vials containing lethal doses of arsenic were found on the Atlantic Yards construction sites.
Park Slope Patch
by Kristen V. Brown
Locals in the footprint of the Atlantic Yards construction site have long felt the project was toxic – turns out, it really is.
A recent construction update from developer Forest City Ratner revealed that vials of arsenic were uncovered on the site – the same highly toxic metal famously used to murder lonely old men in the Joseph Kesselring play Arsenic and Old Lace.
Though developers expected to find an abundance on toxins on the site – including metals such as arsenic – the Empire State Development Corporation said that finding actual vials of the stuff on a construction site is highly unusual.
“It is suspected that the vials were from an old pharmacy,” said Elizabeth Mitchell, a spokesperson for ESDC, the state agency that oversees the project.
“Elevated arsenic concentrations may be encountered at urban and agricultural sites due to past industrial and agricultural uses; it is unusual, however, to encounter vials containing arsenic concentrations.”
Related coverage...
The Local [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill], The Day: Arsenic Vials and Library Cuts
A puzzling discovery at the Atlantic Yards work site was mentioned in a construction update for the week of March 28 to April 10. Workers found vials of arsenic in dug up soil on the site. Prospect Heights Patch reports that the vials may have come from an old pharmacy, according to Empire State Development Corporation spokesperson Elizabeth Mitchell. The soil around the vials tested at below the Environmental Protection Agency’s limits, Ms. Mitchell told Atlantic Yards Report, but it is being treated as hazardous waste, and will be taken to a disposal facility, possibly in Michigan, within the next two to three weeks.
Posted by eric at 11:38 AM
April 13, 2011
Arsenic Discovered at Atlantic Yards Construction Site
The L Magazine
by Henry Stewart
While excavating soil at the Atlantic Yards construction site, workers discovered several small vials of arsenic, Atlantic Yards Report reports. The state says the situation is under control: all affected soil has been contained and "will be inspected daily to ensure secure containment and compliance with the Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan," reads a report from Forest City Ratner. Other areas of the site will be tested to ensure that no surrounding or underlying soil was contaminated.
In the next two or three weeks, the soil will be removed, treated and disposed of by a facility in Belleville, MI. "Until then," a spokesperson for the Empire State Development Corporation told Norman Oder, "the soil is stored onsite and is sealed on top of and under plastic."
Where vials of arsenic came from, nobody knows. A voo-doo ritual to "poison" the project, perhaps? Nice try, anyway.
Posted by eric at 9:25 AM
April 12, 2011
Consultant: arena remains ahead of schedule, but substantial completion date nudged back, final completion date pushed back
Atlantic Yards Report
According the 4/4/11 Site Observation Report on the Barclays Center arena construction, produced by Merritt & Harris, consultants to the real estate lending and investment community, the arena is still ahead of schedule.
Indeed, as the graphic indicates, actual spending (white dot) exceeds projected spending (black dot), though it's still early days.
 |
Falling behind?
But other data indicate that the arena is falling slightly behind earlier predictions:
- the substantial completion date has been nudged back two weeks from 8/12/12 to 8/27/12
- a final completion date, involving punch list work and subcontractor close-outs, has been pushed back three-and-a-half months, from 2/28/13 to 6/14/13.
None of this jeopardizes the announced arena grand opening date of 9/28/12, a month after the substantial completion date. However, if additional glitches crop up, it may get tougher for arena promoters to fulfill this plan, as stated in a 4/5/11 press release:
Prior to the official Grand Opening on September 28, the Barclays Center plans to use the first several weeks of September 2012 to host public events and tours to welcome and introduce the Brooklyn community to its new building.
Posted by eric at 7:31 AM
April 11, 2011
At the AY site, soil contains "a limited amount of small vials containing arsenic," but that arsenic's pretty dangerous; state says it's under control
Atlantic Yards Report
You never know what you'll find at a construction site, apparently, including potentially lethal concentrations of arsenic. But the state says it's under control.
From the ATLANTIC YARDS CONSTRUCTION UPDATE [PDF], weeks of March 28, 2011 through April 10, 2011, produced by Forest City Ratner and circulated by the Empire State Development Corporation:
Soil discovered during excavation that contains a limited amount of small vials containing arsenic has been covered with and staged on plastic on the southern area of Block 1127. The stockpiles of soil have been secured and will be inspected daily to ensure secure containment and compliance with the Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan. The origin of these vials is unknown. Samples of this soil and vials have been collected and are being analyzed to evaluate proper off-site disposal options. Endpoint samples have been collected from the area where the vials were first observed in order to ensure that no additional impacts to surrounding or underlying soils have occurred. All remediation work associated with these vials will be performed in accordance with the Hazardous Materials Health and Safety Plan. Several potential disposal facilities are being evaluated and the stockpiled soil may be disposed of offsite during this reporting period at a properly permitted disposal facility.
I asked the ESDC about the next steps, and spokeswoman Elizabeth Mitchell responded last week:
A permitted disposal facility has been selected, and once the follow-up paper work has been filed, the soil will be removed from the site (expected within the next 2-3 weeks). Until then, the soil is stored onsite and is sealed on top of and under plastic.
The powder in the vials tested at 148 mg/L, and the results from the TCLP (USEPA Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure) testing of the soil currently stored on site tested at 0.02 mg/L. The USEPA regulatory limit for arsenic is 5 mg/L.
FCR’s contractors are treating the soil pile as a hazardous material even though the soil tests showed concentrations well under the EPA regulatory limits. Since the contents of the vials found in the soil are above this limit, it is more practical and a more prudent safety measure to treat the soil pile as a hazardous waste than to try and extract the individual vials from the soil and dispose of them separately.
Posted by eric at 10:24 AM
Nets Future Brooklyn Home Starts Taking Shape
WNYC Radio
by Arun Venugopal
The Barclays Center, the 18,500 seat arena at the center of the still-contentious Atlantic Yards project, is slowly taking shape in Brooklyn. Last week, the New Jersey Nets management announced September 28, 2012, as the opening date for the arena — the team's future home in Brooklyn.
...For some residents, the construction of the Barclays Center represents a mix of day-to-day nuisances and long-term concerns.
Edwin Barreto lives next to the construction site and wishes the arena had been located further out in Brooklyn, perhaps closer to Red Hook. He's been frustrated by the loss of parking spaces, but is even more worried about what will happen, once the arena opens and thousands of outsiders start streaming into the neighborhood.
"What's going to happen too is all those people that go in there and drink that beer, they're going to be coming out here, peeing all over the corners, peeing on people's cars," said Barreto. "I've seen it happen in Newark."
NoLandGrab: Putting an arena in Red Hook, with its dearth of transit access, would've made a bad idea even worse. Mr. Barreto is wrong about that, and let's hope he not right about the other thing — though we fear he is.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Arena: "good for Brooklyn, bad for the neighborhood"?
The article closes thusly:
His friend, Sean Carnegie, walking to his son's basketball practice, saw pros and cons in the location of the arena.
"All in all, it's cool," said Carnegie. "It's good for Brooklyn, bad for the neighborhood."
The choice of a this as a closing quote implies that the reporter considers this a legitimate summary.
Indeed, it captures some of the ambiguity: those closest to the arena site will bear the brunt of its impacts, while those farther away, to the extent it fits their pocketbooks, may avail themselves of sports and entertainment events.
Still, it's unlikely that the man-on-the-street assessment of "good for Brooklyn" factors in the elements of a full cost-benefit analysis, including direct subsidies, tax breaks, and the absence of (or delays in) promised project benefits.
Posted by eric at 10:01 AM
April 10, 2011
From "Solidarity for Sale": how the mob infiltrates construction unions
Atlantic Yards Report
The late Robert Fitch's 2006 book, Solidarity for Sale: How Corruption Destroyed the Labor Movement and Undermined America’s Promise, came from a union supporter, not a critic, so it's full of disappointment and tough love.
He wrote:
Corruption, properly understood as the private use of public office, has been built into the labor movement from its very inception. When union corruption appears in the press, it's usually because of illegal acts: the outright pilfering of union assets or collusion with the boss, selling the members' jobs or giving away their benefits. But a lot of corruption is legal — hiring your relatives, taking excessive salaries, hiring hall favoritism.
Here's a review.
The mob and construction unions
Last October, at the Municipal Art Society Summit for NYC, analyst Julia Vitullo-Martin said, gingerly, "Historically, the mob has been a problem in construction industry."
Now there are hints that leaders in the Carpenters Union, some of them public supporters of Atlantic Yards, have knowledge of mafia ties--at least as suggested by their reported unwillingness to sign a document disavowing such knowledge.
Fitch explained how the system worked:
Most notoriously, the "Theme for The Godfather" regularly serves as background music whenever six-figure construction jobs are in play in New York City. It's hard to avoid the strong arm of the wiseguys when there's so much money to be made from the huge spread between the union rate and the market rate. The contractors can hire non-union labor for as little as $10 an hour with no benefits. Then they charge the owner, the developer, or the government the union rate. The difference will be pocketed by the contractor, minus the cost of bribes to union officials to look the other way. Mob guys--if they're not the contractors themselves--will wind up with at least a couple of points. It's the fee they charge for protection--a vital commodity in the construction field. The more the spread between wages, the more union members getting the premium wages need protection against those seeking their jobs and the more officials who are betraying their members will need protection against those who covet their territories.
He added:
The system turns into