A rendering of Moynihan Station
The first phase of the delayed Moynihan Station project is slated to begin later this year, Reuters reported. The upcoming project will expand Pennsylvania Station’s access to underground passenger platforms and is projected to cost $270 million. [more]
James Abadie, principal of Lend Lease, and U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch
The federal investigation into Lend Lease Construction is likely to extend far into the New York construction industry and is just one example of what some experts consider a widespread practice of fraudulent billing. The firm, formerly known as Bovis Lend Lease, agreed to pay $56 million to settle charges of over-billing clients at projects ranging from the construction of Citi Field, the home of the New York Mets, to the renovation of Grand Central Terminal more than a decade ago, in an investigation led by Brooklyn-based U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch. [more]
Construction in the U.S. dropped by a little more than 1 percent in February, according to data that measure the dollar value of the volume of construction performed nationwide, released by the U.S. Census Bureau today.
The $808.9 billion spent on construction in the U.S. was down 1.1 percent from December’s total of $818.1 billion. Of that, $527.29 million was spent privately, with $280.84 million spent on residential construction, relatively even from the amount spent in January — $246.39 million — and up 5.6 percent year-over-year, from $233.40 in February 2011. [more]
From the March issue: Home builders are switching tactics and confronting head-on one of their biggest nemeses: foreclosed houses that not only lure buyers away with deeply discounted prices, but simultaneously depress the appraisal values of newly built homes.
At a packed session at the International Builders’ Show last month in Orlando, Fla., consultants and builders said that with gluts of foreclosures in major markets around the country — and more forecast to arrive in the next two years — the time has come to stop being passive and to begin aggressively educating buyers about the often hidden costs of buying foreclosures. [more]
An eminent construction boom could be just what our beleaguered economy needs, Matthew Yglesias reported at Slate.com.
As the ratio of homes to people grows nationally, the construction sector is almost certain to recover, an economic correspondent for the magazine. But the federal government must handle the siutation correctly, and allow rents to rise as construction bolsters the labor market more generally, resulting in a larger economic recovery, Yglesias said. [more]
The site of the collapse, at 606 W. 131st Street (credit: DNAinfo)
[Updated at 1:04 p.m., with comment from Borough President Scott Stringer] One construction worker is dead and two others injured after a collapse this morning at a construction site in West Harlem owned by Columbia University, the police and fire departments told The Real Deal.
A call came in at 7:51 a.m. regarding a collapse at 606 West 131st Street, between Broadway and Riverside Drive, according to a spokesperson for the Department of Buildings (note: correction appended). [more]
A rendering of NYU's expansion plan
Despite the opposition to the 20-year NYU 2031 expansion plan, which received a unanimous thumbs down from Community Board 2 Feb. 23, construction workers, the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York and the Greenwich Village-Chelsea Chamber of Commerce rallied on the steps of City Hall yesterday in support of the project, DNAinfo reported. [more]
Big New York City job losses in the construction industry continued in January, according to a January employment report issued today by Eastern Consolidated. However, New York City added 31,200 jobs in the month of January alone, the highest month-over-month gain in the last 23 years. Year-over-year, the city added 54,200 jobs.
Eastern Consolidated considers the construction sector to be one of the “biggest losers” of jobs for the one-month period from December 2011 to January 2012, with 3,000 jobs lost. For the period spanning December 2010 to January 2012, the industry lost 2,300 jobs, which marks a 2.1 percent loss from the same period the year before. [more]
From the March issue: It was four years ago this month that seven people were killed in a crane collapse on East 51st Street. Since then, the New York City Department of Buildings — under fire for lax oversight of building plans — has taken steps to improve its safety procedures.
But some real estate professionals say the pendulum may have swung too far in the other direction; the agency is now taking so much time to scrutinize plans and permit applications, they say, that it’s leading to project delays — forcing developers to push back their timelines for commercial and residential projects citywide. [more]
Bergen Bagels
From the March issue: Workers from the under-construction Barclays Center are taking a bite out of the surrounding Brooklyn neighborhood.
Every weekday around noon, the streets around the Prospect Heights site are awash with construction workers heading to their favorite nearby lunch spots. Take-out joints and bodegas, like Gino’s Pizzeria at 218 Flatbush Avenue and AR Coffee Shop on Fifth Avenue and Dean Street, are seeing a steady stream of construction workers come in. At Bergen Bagels, on the corner of Bergen Street and Flatbush Avenue, lines spill out the door each morning, as workers pick up bagels and coffee on their way to the rising arena, which is slated to open in September. [more]
