Monetary dispute shuts down Atlantic Yards construction

From the NY Times:

Forest City Ratner, the developer at the sprawling Atlantic Yards complex (renamed Pacific Park this month) in Brooklyn, boasted in 2012 that it had “cracked the code” sought by builders for more than a half-century, enabling the company to build residential, high-rise towers faster, better and more cheaply.

But a dark shadow was cast over those claims on Wednesday. Slow-moving work on the first tower shut down completely amid a battle over tens of millions of dollars in cost overruns between Forest City and its partner, Skanska, the giant Swedish construction company that is also the construction manager for the building.

This dispute over a high-profile development is unusually bitter and public, even for the typically rambunctious New York real estate industry.

Skanska on Wednesday unilaterally closed the factory in the Brooklyn Navy Yard where 157 workers assembled and built the steel-framed modules for the first of a planned 14 prefabricated apartment buildings, at Flatbush Avenue and Dean Street.

A day earlier, Skanska ceased work at the construction site, where the building rises to only 10 floors of its 32-story height, 21 months after work started.

Plumbers sue Ratner over prefab construction

From the Daily News:

Developer Bruce Ratner's plan to build pre-fab apartment buildings at his Atlantic Yards complex dangerously ignores key building safety rules, union workers charge in a bombshell lawsuit.

The Plumbing Foundation claims in its suit that the Building Department is wrongly allowing Ratner to build the first phase of the $4.9 billion, 15-building residential and commercial project without using licensed plumbers and fire suppression contractors.

Because Ratner is using pre-fabricated — or modular — units, more than 60% of the construction of the project surrounding the Barclays Center is expected to be completed off-site.

The modules currently being built at the Brooklyn Naval Yard includes plumbing, gas and sprinkler piping for the world's tallest modular building, a 32-story residential structure named B2, slated to rise at Dean St. and Flatbush Ave.

But that construction is not being done by licensed workers, a violation of the city's strict building Administrative Code, according to the lawsuit.