The developer expects the project factory at the Brooklyn
Navy Yard to be operating as normal this month
The world’s tallest proposed modular tower may actually
reach its full potential.
Developer Bruce Ratner has finally resumed work on his
32-story residential building next to the Barclays Center after a five-month
hiatus stemming from a dispute with construction giant Skanska over the
pre-fabricated design.
As a result of that legal fight, Ratner gained control of
Skanska’s factory in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where modules for the proposed
tallest modular tower were made.
Now Ratner’s company, Forest City Ratner, said it expects
the factory will be operating at full capacity by the end of the month. It’s
still unclear when the 363-unit tower will be done.
The experimental building was billed as the first of a
new generation of affordable skyscrapers, with Ratner even boasting once that
his modular plans would “crack the code” on high-rise development in the city.
But it only rose 10 stories above Dean St. before the
dispute with Skanska halted it entirely — a failure that left Forest City red
of face and balance sheet.
But with the factory coming back online, some confidence
has been restored.
"We are committed to completing the world’s tallest
modular building by using the same technology that we started it with,” Bob
Sanna, executive vice president of Forest City, told the Daily News. “More
workers are returning to work as the factory gets back into full swing.”
The company says about 50 people are already back at
work, and 150 more union workers, who were furloughed by the closure of the
factory last summer, have been asked to return to work. The developer is also
hiring internally for construction management positions.
The factory has been closed since Skanska bailed out of
its contract with Ratner in September — and both companies sued.
Skanska claimed cost overruns because Ratner's designs
were flawed, while Forest City said Skanska had closed the module factory to
get more money out of the company.
Even as the lawsuits are pending, Forest City bought out
Skanska for an undisclosed figure in November.
The building, known as B2 BKLYN, would be the first
residential building at Ratner’s long-delayed Pacific Park, the 22-acre,
6,000-plus unit mixed-use residential and commercial development formerly known
as Atlantic Yards.
Source: New
York Daily News
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