HIP's Giving Out Bad Vibrations
Last Thursday, Brooklyn Record ran a piece about earthquake-like conditions on Atlantic Avenue near Nevins. Turns out the source of the saucer-rattling was a huge pile driver at the site of a new HIP building that’s going up on the Northwest corner. Evidently this isn’t the first instance of the project bothering neighbors. David Yassky’s…
Last Thursday, Brooklyn Record ran a piece about earthquake-like conditions on Atlantic Avenue near Nevins. Turns out the source of the saucer-rattling was a huge pile driver at the site of a new HIP building that’s going up on the Northwest corner. Evidently this isn’t the first instance of the project bothering neighbors. David Yassky’s office has been trying to get HIP to hold a community hearing. In addition to the pile driving, area residents are miffed that the health insurer will not be including any ground-floor retail in the building.
Hey, Boerum Hill, What’s Shakin’? [Brooklyn Record]
GMAP
The no windows on the first floor thing is actually very common in healthcare-related buildings. There is a huge risk of break-ins from people looking for drugs. Sad, but probably saves them a LOT of money in window repair costs.
HIP’s actually putting up a solid brick wall – NO WINDOWS – at street level.
how’s that for friendly?
The area residents that are concerned should hire an independent consultant, like Impact, to place siesmic monitors on their properties. These monitors will determine what is acceptable and what is not. And the monitors’ readings have been used in past lawsuits against developers and such. HIP has enough money to have used helical screw piles. Though they have yet to be acknolwedged by the DOB, the builder would have to hire a company to oversee the process. The difference from one system and the other is about $50k-$100k typically. And in large tasks with high costs, it can mean an increase in 3-5%. A drop in the bucket for HIP
So DOB was there and took vibration readings. They were way below levels that would cause any damage; just annoying, but it was just two days. I think people are really over-reacting.
And as far as street level retail in the HIP building… why? We have so much unoccupied street level retail already why add to it. Seems to me, the focus should be filling the retail spaces that already exist. I live on Atlantic, and I don’t think it’s ever gonna happen.
I live a block away, too–was awoken two mornings in a row at 7am to find out entire house shaking. . . . The slapdash, cheap-o highrises going up on this stretch of Atlantic Avenue are a bummer in every sense of the word.
I live about 1/2 block away. If I had accidentally cut myself on the broken wine glasses the construction of the new HIP building caused, I’d be putting in a claim with my HIP Health Insurance.