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]
I’m sorry – hundreds of millions in our taxes goes to Ratner to fund this mess. He cuts corners, blatantly lies about economic benefit, costs and what he’s going to build with our money – and the problem is unions????
bxgrl, while we may disagree on the benefits and impact of the project as a whole, I think we are in close to full agreement on the poor execution of the project by FCR and the failings of the government agencies involved to represent taxpayers while creating and enforcing an agreement with FCR.
All this talk about the evil unions influencing politics seems to forget one thing: unions don’t cast votes, people do. Whether your union backs a certain party or candidate or not, each individual voter gets to go into the voting booth and cast his/her vote for whomever they please. The union bosses, as well as the politicized clergymen, and rapid relatives are not standing with anyone in the voting booth. Hopefully, each voter has enough of a brain to vote for whom they believe will best represent them. Hopefully.
back to this AY issue, I am more pissed off at the gov officials for enabling this and continue to let it be as-is. Ratner is a rat but it’s at least understandable why he is looking out for #1 (himself). Ridiculous how our gov officials continue to give us the middle finger on this.
(by the way, I don’t contribute to the “VOTE-COPE” voluntary giving thing, because…. yes this is crazy… I don’t support all of my union’s political platform and I contribute/support the way I want. Yep, unions are monolithic creatures. And guess what? Our union newspaper regularly includes point-counterpoint articles or other “dissenting” opinions.)
Scott- the story of the Empire State Building is boh remarkable and iconic.
And there is nothing wrong with fast and cheap, as long as, as you said, safety is not compromised. But since modular construction at a hight of 34 stories is untested, that’s the question. How safe?
I agree, Ratner overreached and part of his problem is the changing fincancial environment but on the other hand, he has shown no flexibility or made any attempt to rethink his position. Other than drastically changing the design by cheapening it, and making it less innovative, he seems to have decided to dig in his heels and keep going. He’s also asked for more public monies, while still not having given a dime to the city for the air rights (although I blame the MTA for screwing up on that more than him). It’s a mess and one he seems not to care to resolve.
Like Noki, I am SO tired of unions being made the bad guys in every financial discussion here, be it in construction, or general finance, locally or nationally. Enough already. Union construction workers are not a local phenomenon. They build all across the country, in big and small projects, and buildings are getting built in other cities. The problem in Atlantic Yards is not the damn unions.
I have no problem with the concept of modular construction, either. I do have a problem with it suddenly becoming the way to go in this particular project. Johnny is right, it’s a bait and switch, yet again. If FCR had suggested modular construction from jump street, he would have had a hard time selling it, because rightly or wrongly, it is perceived as cheap, and reminds people who don’t know any better, and let’s face it, that’s the majority of people, of stacking shipping containers, or trailers. The fact that that is not correct has little to do with public perception.
So – here we are with mandates to build, or face fines, and they are down to figuring out how to build in the cheapest way possible and still use union workers, only because they have to, and still build to code. Someone, somewhere turned the public funded spigot off, and now FCR is going to have to pay for far more of its own construction costs. Yeah, by all means, reduce the workforce of your biggest supporters and make up the costs that way. This should be interesting.
If we’re gonna talk about unions, let’s get specific about New York State public employee unions.
There are *specific laws* in New York State.
My union dues may only be used for strictly defined union business related to contract negotiation, membership communications related to the contract and contract enforcement!
ANY OTHER ACTIVITIES are funded by VOLUNTARY contributions. This includes all political actions such as campaigning and so on. Please tell me how this is oh so very different from any sort of political action group?!
“How’s that any different from KBR donating money politicians elections and paying lobbying firms to lobby the same people they contributed to who then turn around and grant tax payer funded government contracts worth billions?”
The above scenario you lay out is disturbing and I wish it could be better controlled – but the difference is KBR (nor any other corporation) can actually vote…which is how pols get elected. Sure the money and lobbying stinks (cause it is effective in influencing political decisions) but it is still much more indirect than the actual employees voting in mass for their future “management” and then negotiation with that same “management” for benefits that wont be payed for, for decades (thereby making it totally non-transparent and takes it outside most public scrutiny)