Taken Dec 13
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is the construction still loud
Construction has been stalled at this site for nearly the entire winter. Just last week there was some activity. Some equipment and materials showed up. So maybe things will pick back up soon.
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It does like there’s been work recently to prepare the bottom floor for concrete. I can tell when concrete is being poured right from my apartment so will report if I see anthing!
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Very little. They clearly are working on wood forms for the foundation concrete pour but they’ve been doing that for at least a month (as I said before that there had been no activity at all since last year). 50 Hudson may top out before this building even starts going vertical.
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Life!
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Not a lot of vertical progress on this project in the past 6 weeks, but the tower crane base was installed this week. The first floor concrete is completely done.
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It’s been 1 year since pile driving began on this project and there are only 2 floors constructed. A question for those who post on this board who have knowledge of the construction industry. Why does a project like this have such slow progress vs. (for example) 50 & 55 Hudson? Both those projects had at least 25 stories built in the same timeframe.
From an economic standpoint it would seem to me that once companies get huge construction loans to build a project like this they would be incented to finish ASAP so they can start renting apartments out and make their money back. But I’m sure like most things it’s more complicated than that…
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Union versus non-union maybe?
There are a lot of different factors.
Number one is funds. A lot of projects do not secure funding for the entire project (I don’t know why); its instead secured in phases. This is more common with multi-building/tower projects but can happen with single towers as well. Projects can stall for a long time if they are seeking funding or have run out of funding. Seeking funding is dependent on a lot factors itself, too much to go into, but its a huge reason projects stall, and the absolute biggest reason a lot of projects never even break ground.
Number two is bureaucracy. Even after approval, some projects make changes, seek variances, or worse, they get cited for violations either during inspections or from people reporting them. All of these can cause delays as they go through different processes. Some can even create a Stop Work order, which stalls all work until the project is in compliance.
Number three is choice of construction firm and sub-contractors. Put simply some contractors are just slower or do a worse job that requires more fixes (inspector finds more things that need to be fixed). This doesn’t necessarily mean the contractor is bad, it could be they are very meticulous and slow. But usually its more incompetence than attention-to-detail. There are usually dozens of different subcontractors involved in a project.
There are other factors, like weather, the general economic environment, local housing market, etc.
Namdar in JSQ for example I suspect builds fast for a few reasons:
- They are a value engineering shop. Every aspect of a build is basically as cheap as possible.
- Their buildings look similar for a reason. Using the same materials across projects saves a lot of time and money.
- They use the same firms and contractors for every project.
- They aquired land early.
- They usually apply for permits and seek approvals in parallel with ongoing construction. They dont wait around.
- They usually have all funding secured. With the success of all their builds, they have no issue seeking funding either
- They have a good relationship with the city so bureaucracy is not usually an issue
- Most of all: They want to go fast. A lot of firms simply do not care to go that fast. Going fast can present risk at times, e.g. investing too fast before seeing return or market strength. So the speed a project goes also depends on the speed a firm is comfortable with.
50 and 55 Hudson most likely secured funding easily, have good contractors, and the firm wants to move fast. Also, frankly, the design is very simple.
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Thank you this is very helpful. For this specific building I can see on the JC permit site that a few reinspections have been required for rebar and electrical, so to your point that slows things down / stops work while re-inspections take place.
Maybe someone can explain the “don’t secure funding for the entire project” to me more as from a business perspective this seems incredibly risky. If I take out millions of $s in loans and the only way I’m going to pay them back is to have a completed rentable or sellable building, it seems very risky to put myself in a position to not have enough $ to complete the entire project. As you point out there are many outside factors (interest rates, economy, etc.) that could make it difficult or impossible to secure more funding to complete the project.
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