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Jay is for Justice
New Forest City office tower
will house state courts
By Tom Stabile
| The
new 25-floor courthouse is part of the 16-acre MetroTech
Center development in downtown Brooklyn. It is scheduled
to be completed in spring 2005. |
The biggest fans of the new 32-story office tower rising
on Jay Street in downtown Brooklyn will probably be attorneys.
The 1.1-million-sq.-ft. space will serve as a hall of justice,
and attorneys will only have to press the down button for
their trips to the courthouse.
The project is being developed by 330 Jay Street Associates
LLC. It will house not only 950,000 sq. ft. of space for the
New York State Supreme Court and the Kings County Family Court,
but also five upper floors with 172,000 sq. ft. of office
space-prime space for law firm tenants. The building will
have two levels of below-grade parking and two floors for
mechanical systems.
Upon its completion in spring 2005, the 25-floor courthouse
will contain 84 courtrooms and hearing rooms, judges' chambers,
support spaces and prisoner holding cells. The tenant spaces
will be ready for fit-out work in mid-2004, said MaryAnne
Gilmartin of 330 Jay Street Associates, an subsidiary of Forest
City Ratner Companies.
The project is part of Forest City's 16-acre MetroTech Center
development in downtown Brooklyn. It is across the street
from the main 16-acre MetroTech campus that is already home
to major tenants such as Chase Manhattan Bank and KeySpan
Energy. Forest City is calling 330 Jay Street its "12
Metrotech Center" building.
The building is also near the Renaissance Plaza office tower
that houses the offices of the Brooklyn District Attorney.
Construction began in March 2002. Turner Construction Co.
is the construction manager for both base construction and
the interior fit-out.
The project team has completed exterior façade work
and is now focused on the extensive interior fit-out. Joe
Glowacki, project executive for Turner, said it involves an
intensive commissioning program to test all building systems.
"The commissioning is more extensive than usual, just
because of the magnitude of the security systems and the AV
systems," Glowacki added. "[The job] requires a
considerable coordination and management effort-the security
and A/V program is tremendous, and courts have been designed
in compliance with Courtroom 2000 technology guidelines.
Tishman Construction Corporation is acting as program manager
for the New York City Economic Development Corp. on the courthouse
portion of the facility, which also will house offices for
other city agencies. TCC's role, headed by project executive
Rob Manning, involves managing procurement and installation
of furniture, fixtures, and equipment for the city agencies,
a multi-million dollar job.
"Soliciting and coordinating requests and responses
from numerous entities such as the city's Department of Correction,
the state Family Court and the state Supreme Court regarding
building systems such as audio-visual, security, signage,
furniture, fixtures and equipment, and detention hardware
has been a significant challenge," said TCC project manager
Ken Molloy.
The 473-ft. building has a structural steel frame with concrete
floors poured on metal decks. The exterior façade is
precast concrete with brick in-fills, with precast column
covers and vision and spandrel glass strip windows in between
for the curtain wall.
Glowacki said another unique aspect was the need to create
three separate lobbies for the Supreme Court, family court
and commercial office space. Forest City's marketing materials
bill this as a "building within a building" design.
Other major project team members include Perkins Eastman
Architects; Flack & Kurtz as MEP engineer; and Gilsanz,
Murray, Stefieck as structural engineer.
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