Inside Third & Bond: Week 122

This week the Third & Bond bloggers take at look at how their new construction held up to last week’s weather…What happened to Third + Bond during one of the worst storms seen by NYC in the last 30 years? Was siding ripped from the façade? Did water back up in the mechanical rooms? Did massive roof leaks ruin newly installed wood floors? Nope. Not much of anything happened. There were two units where the waterproofing hadn’t been completed and a small amount of water leached into a discrete spot. Fortunately the drywall is actually cement board in that area so it fared pretty well. We set up electric space heaters to dry the spot out and will determine soon if the floorboards need to be replaced.

Aside from our sadness at the loss of old growth trees around the City, and our empathy for fellow city dwellers who lost power or experienced property damage, we were pretty psyched to have a storm like this one…

…This is a great time to test our building envelope and construction quality. Better to know before occupants move in if the roof has any weak spots or if we were too bold in putting bedrooms right at the rear yard garden. Third + Bond, you done good.

In comparison, some of Hudson’s other projects did not fare so well. We have a development of 1- and 2-family affordable homes in Far Rockaway that had fairly extensive siding damage. The siding is a colored cement board, so pretty rigid stuff which tore right off once the wind got beneath it. On 13 out of 23 houses, some siding was ripped clean off. Mostly it was the more decorative pieces but there were a few shockers like the one pictured above.

Out of our six buildings on Roosevelt Island the Riverwalk series developed in partnership with Related only 2 of the commercial spaces experienced storm damage. Stormwater came in through ventilation louvers in the storefront façade. Since this is the first time rain has come in through the louvers, we are chalking it up to a freak 30-year storm and aren’t planning to change the louvers.

Remember that (yawn) posting about insurance in Week 20? As we talked about then, we have builder’s risk to protect us if the building is damaged by fire or force majeure during construction. What about storm or high wind damage? We won’t have any claims for Third + Bond, although we will make sure our mold inspector takes a close look at the areas where the water penetrated. As for the other Hudson projects, we’ll help with repairs but the homeowners or tenants will be responsible for following up with their insurance. The first step is find out if you’re covered, then to find out if the cost of the damage is greater than the deductible.

Is this the last storm Third + Bond will weather? Certainly not. But we are glad to have one under our belt.

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Inside Third & Bond: Weeks 1-121 [Brownstoner]

Our legal fine print: The complete offering terms are in an Offering Plan available from Sponsor. File No. CD080490. Sponsor: Hudson Third LLC, 826 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.