Condo Developers Can’t Explain Fallen Debris on BPC Ice Rink
By Matt Dunning
Neither the developers nor the general contractor can explain how, in January, debris fell from the residential complex they are constructing next to the Battery Park City ball fields and onto the ice rink on field.
Representatives of Milstein Properties, Roseland Property Company and Plaza Construction appeared before Community Board 1’s Battery Park City Committee on Tuesday, following a Jan. 25 incident in which a 3-by-8-inch piece of plywood fell onto the Battery Park City Ice Rink while the rink was in use. There were no injuries.
The wood fell from the upper floors of the Liberty Luxe, one of two condo towers under construction less than 100 feet from the Battery Park City ball fields. The protective horizontal netting—intended to catch items blown or dropped from the towers—that surrounds the outer edges of the Luxe building between the finished and unfinished floors was torn in some sections and missing in others on the 23rd story, according to the Department of Buildings.
Maria Rosenfeld, spokeswoman for Roseland Property said the companies were not certain what caused the wood to fall but speculated that sustained winds of over 20 mph the day of the incident may have been the culprit.
”We don’t know how it came down,” she said, adding that the Buildings Department had just finished an inspection of the buildings that morning. “It was a very windy, cold night. It was a total shock to us.”
Rosenfeld said the wood could have been a part of the framing for the Luxe’s concrete floors, but that Buildings Department inspectors did not find any pieces missing in their check of the building. Construction of the 22-and-32-story condo towers has been carried out largely without incident since it began in 2008, Rosenfeld said, and in compliance with the site safety plan approved by the Buildings Department in April 2009. Crews are scheduled to finish pouring the concrete floors of the 32-story Liberty Luxe tower by the end of the month.
In addition to the safety plan now in place, Rosenfeld said the company was taking additional precautions to prevent a repeat incident.
“We’re doing everything that we can think of,” she said. “We’ve been vigilantly making sure that each measure of that plan is adhered to, and we’ve hired an additional site safety coordinator in addition to the two already on site.”
According to the development’s safety plan, orange netting surrounds all unenclosed floors in the towers. Although city building codes only require nets to be five feet high, Rosenfeld said the netting on the Liberty Luxe and Liberty Green towers extends from floor to ceiling. The hoist elevators—a source of worry at the nearby Goldman Sachs tower after a 30-inch metal plate sliced into the outfield during a Little League game—are also completely encased in safety netting. The companies also agreed to limit work on the east side of the building, facing the ball fields, during their peak hours of use in the afternoons and on the weekends.
Members of the Battery Park City Committee, who waited for months last year just for Milstein representatives to show them the safety plan, said they appreciated the companies’ efforts to secure the work sites. However, with the April 10 start of the Downtown Little League season fast approaching, they said more was needed to ensure safety on the fields.
“Despite everybody’s happiness with the safety plan, this happened anyway,” committee chairwoman Linda Belfer said. “It’s very disconcerting, especially now that children are preparing to return to those fields.”
Mark Costello, the former president of the league and a member of its board, said Milstein and Plaza Construction could go a long way toward easing safety concerns by not working on weekends, when the fields are at their busiest. Tom D’ercole, a senior project manager for Plaza Construction, said the company could not promise to halt all weekend work, but would continue to limit those jobs to the western side or interior of the buildings.
“The density of use on those fields is much higher on weekends, and we just flat-out hate those variances for weekend work,” Costello said. “We do think this is a strong plan, but weekend work is a real sore spot.”