When Forest City Ratner broke ground on the first of its apartment buildings at Atlantic Yards, a 32-story tower at Atlantic Avenue and Dean Street, it was poised to be ”the world’s tallest prefabricated, or modular, building,” according to The New York Times.
But it one crazy Chinese developer makes good on his word, Read More
New York apartments are notorious for being about as big as a shoe box, but those were typically 19th century tenements. Today, the Bloomberg administration brought tiny apartments into the 21 century with My Micro NY, the winning entry in a competition launched last July to create a miniature housing model for the city.
Currently, it is illegal to build a new apartment smaller than 450 square feet, but the new program seeks comfortable, attractive housing units between 250 and 375 square feet. The city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development received 33 different entries for the project, which will be built on a city-owned site in Murray Hill. Read More
Bruce Ratner did not win out with the tax man this week, but he has secured an even bigger deal with another New York City institution that will be a linchpin for his Atlantic Yards project. Today, Forest City Ratner announced it is going forward with its long-planned intentions to build a modular apartment tower as part of the 22-acre arena-anchored mega-development. The project is made possible in large part through an agreement with the city’s labor unions to allow the 32-story prefab apartment building to proceed.
Modular construction has long been a dream of architects, for its efficiency and control, and now it could be a boon for New York City developers as well, since prefab methods can save 20 to 30 percent from traditional design methods. The only issue is for construction workers. Because the projects are built in factories, even when using union labor, the jobs tend to be less skilled and thus lower paying. Many labor unions had bridled at this, especially since Mr. Ratner had made extensive promises about the well-paying jobs Atlantic Yards would provide. But today the Building and Construction Trades Council announced its support for the development, saying that the prefab builders will get their own division within the labor group. Read More
In this week’s paper, The Observer looked at the possibility for prefab in New York City, assuming it takes off at Atlantic Yards. Among the claims against we heard was that even if there is a construction revolution, it will never come to Manhattan, given the tight quarters. Granted Inwood is a bit more spacious than the Financial District, but we are still wrong on that count, as Curbed reports that a long-planned prefab project at 4857 Broadway is back on. Read More
