Ratner Considers Prefab Tower for Atlantic Yards
The Times reports that Forest City Ratner is considering modular construction for its first, 34-story high-rise at Atlantic Yards. The story says that though the move would cut costs, a prefabricated tower “is untested at that height” and the move would likely piss off construction workers, who were among the mega-project’s most vocal supporters. Although…
The Times reports that Forest City Ratner is considering modular construction for its first, 34-story high-rise at Atlantic Yards. The story says that though the move would cut costs, a prefabricated tower “is untested at that height” and the move would likely piss off construction workers, who were among the mega-project’s most vocal supporters. Although the the developer has its architecture firm SHoP working on designs for both a traditional and modular building, another consideration is whether a prefab structure of this height would actually result in much of a cost savings, according to the story: “Whether taller modular buildings can be built to withstand intense wind shear and seismic forces, while retaining cost savings, is another question, because the higher a structure is built, the more bracing it would require.” The article says developer Bruce Ratner has been “captivated” by the video above, which shows a modular hotel rising in China in just a few days.
Prefabricated Tower May Rise at Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards [NY Times]
“They only way to build those faster is to close them down and you would freak out if they closed your subway station down to renovate it faster so either they do it off hours and weekends of they close the whole thing down to complete it sooner.”
So you’re telling me the MTA is the epitome of efficiency with regards to repairs of stations?
Sorry – it takes them months to repair an ESCALATOR.
At the new Atlantic Terminal LIRR area, I’m not sure how well they could have squeezed in escalators given the relatively tight space between the end of the LIRR platforms and the street line.
Perhaps they should have pushed the platforms back a few feet and/or gone into the the tiny plaza space.
I do think that they should have put in an additional elevator and made the stairs a bit wider. Since so many people do not know how to properly use stairs, they can get crowded with assholes.
Arkady pretty much summed up my feelings towards Dave’s ‘contributions’ here. Getting a little sick of the union bashing. It’s simplistic and not funny.
This story makes me a little bit sick to my stomach. I’m reading Hacker and Peirson’s Winner-Take-All Politics; How Washington Made the Rich Richer – and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class, and am going to have to stop reading it before bed. Simply too difficult. But Ratner is a beautiful example of the folks who are, as Sheen puts it, WINNING at the expense of the vast majority of working folks – even while playing dirty. Really dirty.
Yes, NYC pushed the scale, but using tried and true methods. Very few construction innovations have come out of NYC in the last century that I’m aware of. You could argue that Reobling’s cable wrapping was pretty innovative, but I think that was in the 1860’s?
Unions be damned, if there’s money to be made, developers are going to do it. But if I have millions and millions of dollars sitting on the table, why risk trying something new, that’s unproven? Maybe I will save some money, maybe I’ll fall flat on my face.
What’s being lost here is that modular construction has been taking place in NYC for years, but we’ve become so used to it that we don’t consider it modular anymore. girder framing, Plank floors, curtain walls, those are all examples of modular building, and they all took a while to gain a foothold before they were accepted. Once they were proven on a smaller scale, developers embraced them, and unions installed them. PVC pipe was banned for years not because of unions, but because firefighters don’t relish the thought of a blazing, molten blob, releasing toxic fumes while it burns, that’s almost impossible to put out falling on them.
As far as graft, greed and corruption, so you mean that the unions are acting like good capitalists?
“what is so terrible about it from a usability point of view?”
Lots of stairs, no escalators.
Difficult when carrying lots of stuff back from Target.
In addition to the Atlantic Terminal they built a new shopping center on top of it is as well.
They only way to build those faster is to close them down and you would freak out if they closed your subway station down to renovate it faster so either they do it off hours and weekends of they close the whole thing down to complete it sooner. They’re doing that at Smith and 9th st and you saw how well that went over.
The last wave of construction at Atlantic Terminal was to build a new 2 story LIRR entrance, ticket area, restrooms, and passenger circulation area.
I think it looks nice and is well laid out, but took the MTA way the hell too long to build.
“what has actually been DONE??!! i just see a whole bunch of scaffolding going up and down and well fed guys wearing orange vests looking really bored. ”
They reconfigured a few of the platforms and rebuilt a new terminal for the LIRR, that just the stuff you can see. If you don’t even know what was changed there then why are you complaining about the time line of it?
BoerumHillScott — the stairways from the corner street entrance (i.e., main entrance) are very narrow and there’s 1 elevator. Both of these items could have easily been improved, but perhaps that would have gotten in the way of the amazing late-80s shopping mall atrium aesthetic.
When it’s busy it’s a total crowded zoo. How could they possibly have thought those stairs were properly sized for rush hour LIRR + subway commuting… and future game day entrance/exit.