Precursor work for railyard platform finally coming? Fence could start in a few (business) days. After delay, Construction Update coming today.

This is the second of four articles about the July 12, 2022 Quality of Life meeting.

Finally, it's coming? At least a month after the previous expectation, a representative of developer Greenland USA--which dominates Greenland Forest City Partners--said precursor work for the railyard platform is expected to start soon.

"We're still in the process of pulling the final permits necessary to commence construction around Block 1120," said Scott Solish, referring to the Vanderbilt Yard block bounded by Sixth and Carlton avenues, and Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street.

That includes permits for the construction fence and for changing parking and sidewalk access. Below is an image of the expected fencing around that block, from a presentation at the recent Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation meeting.

Page 11 of AYCDC-Meeting-Project-Update June 7, 2022

Contributed to DocumentCloud by Norman Oder (NormanOder (Individual)) • View document or read text

"So, as soon as we get that permit, which we hope is going to be sometime in the next several business days," Solish said, "we'll try and mobilize the fence contractor to begin erecting the fence around the Block 1120, with work within the yard and platform components following suit thereafter."

Work within the yard is the construction of the platform needed to support three towers, including B5 (aka 700 Atlantic Avenue.)

After getting permits from city and state agencies, he said, "that work will hopefully start sometime in the next few weeks."

Later, in response to my question about the reason for delays, Solish responded a bit sharply. "There's no delay. I just went through that. We're just waiting for our permits and we will get moving, hopefully soon."

In other words, waiting for permits causes delay. The "next several business days" likely means next week.

Where's the Construction Update?

Tobi Jaiyesimi, Atlantic Yards Project Manager for Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, answered my question about the absence of the two-week Construction Update, which was due before Monday, July 11.

"The two-week look ahead has been drafted and is expected to be distributed to the community by end of day tomorrow [Wednesday]," she said. "There was just an administrative delay on the ESD side that prevented the distribution at the beginning of this week."

An "administrative delay" could mean... someone was on vacation?

The document, said Solish, is "consistent" with the previous one, "so there's no significant new information in there. But we do apologize for the delay."