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Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park infographics: what's built/what's coming/what's missing, who's responsible, + project FAQ/timeline (pinned post)

How long would the platform take for first three towers? Three phases of work required, with some already accomplished. But transparency needed.

So what does that mean, as floated in the New York Post two nights ago:
Greenland Forest City Partners, which controls development rights to many of the complex’s building sites, plans to start construction in 2020 of a long-awaited platform over the site’s sunken LIRR train yard, the Greenland group’s Executive VP Scott Solish said.
Annotations by Norman Oder, including
Total Time and W/o Foundation columns 
As I wrote, it's unclear how long the platform would take. And the developer neither was asked that question nor has answered it.

So the best guess comes from a document I acquired and wrote about last April, which has not been validated by the developer.

The railyard block (Block 1120, between Sixth and Carlton Avenues) with the three towers would have work in two general phases, one involving the B5 tower, and the other involving the B6 and B7 towers.

Three stages per phase

Each Development Phase will have three Construction Stages, with the last stage involving two simultaneous pieces of work. 

Those components include:
  • footings, columns, and foundation walls
  • platform level structure work
  • SOFP (spray-on fireproofing), MEP (mechanical, electrical, and plumbing), and lighting
  • Foundation component: concrete & rebar at B5 site,
    near Sixth Avenue north of Pacific Street 
  • structural topping slab and waterproofing
Those last two elements are pursued simultaneously.

That said, the overall work at the railyard has taken far longer than originally projected, which means any time estimate for the platform work deserves some skepticism.

How much progress?

What's unclear is how much of the first stage has been done: footings, columns, and foundation walls. A notable share--at least for the B5 tower--has been completed. 

Scott Solish of Greenland USA, asked in January about the footings for the buildings in the eastern block (B8-B10) of the railyard--a heavier lift than the western block, which partially has terra firma--said "the preplacement of foundations is finished." That implies it's done for the western block, as well, but hardly seems definitive.

Pacific Street foundation wall/rebar for B6/B7
Once such first stage work is done, and B5 was supposed to take 150 days, the rest of the B5 work would take 230 days, or less than eight months, according to the schedule.

For B6 and B7, that would be a heavier lift: 420 days, or more than 14 months. Again, it's unclear how much has been completed, but after that, the rest of the work would take 285 days, or more than nine months.

As I wrote, that doesn't necessarily keep two or even three buildings from being completed by 2025. But a lot more sunlight is necessary.

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