City Council Clears Silvercup West in Queens

The New York City Council OKs plans for the $1 billion mixed-use project on the Long Island City waterfront. Also, an OSHA study shows big gap in safety records between union and nonunion projects.

Silvercup West Closer to Launch

A $1 billion mixed-use project in the Long Island City section of Queens that will merge television and film studios with residences and cultural space has cleared another hurdle as the New York City Council approved development plans in August.

The new Silvercup West complex is being developed by Alan Suna and Stuart Match Suna, who are co-owners of Silvercup Studios, a facility that opened in 1983 on the site of the former Silvercup Bakery. They opened Silvercup Studios East in 1999, adding more than 400,000 sq. ft. of space in 18 studios and various production and storage facilities.

The new 2.2-million-sq.-ft. project is slated to begin next year with Tishman Construction of New York as construction manager. It would open in 2010 on six acres of abandoned land south of the Queensboro Bridge.

Richard Rogers Partnership of London is designing the complex, with Seattle-based NBBJ as architect of record. It will have 1,000 residential units, of which 15 percent will be affordable housing, as well as 650,000 sq. ft. of offices, 70,000 sq. ft. of retail space, a 40,000-sq.-ft. catering hall, and a 100,000-sq.-ft. cultural space. The design also calls for a waterfront esplanade and roof terrace.

The project had already won approval from the New York City Planning Commission as well as endorsements from the Queens borough president's office and the community board serving Long Island City.

Union Sites Safer in OSHA Data

A recent U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration analysis of data for construction projects across New York City found that nonunion employer-run sites have a markedly higher rate of violations and fatalities than sites handled by union contractors.

"While it's hard to say that one site is safer than another site, I do think that there is a greater prevalence of dangerous conditions, and a commensurate higher number of fatalities, on nonunion sites," said Richard Mendelson, Manhattan area director for OSHA, who ran the analysis on a request by New York Construction.

Compiling data between October 2001 through June 2006 for inspections, violations, and fatalities at construction projects, the agency issued an average of 3.3 violations per inspection to nonunion employers. For union contractors, the average was 1.5 violations.

During that time frame, the agency recorded data on 96 construction-site fatalities. Of those deaths, 68, or 71 percent, were at sites run by nonunion employers, while the other 28 victims were employees of union contractors. The analysis did not encompass non-fatal accidents.

In addition, the OSHA analysis found that the in-compliance rate, which reflects site inspections that result in no citations, was 43 percent for union employers and only 18 percent for nonunion employers. While 11 percent of the union sites with inspection violations were cited for items that would not result in serious physical harm or death, which OSHA terms "other-than-serious violations," only 3 percent of the nonunion sites that had violations were cited for less-serious infractions.

OSHA, which spends around 70 percent of its resources on the construction industry, inspected 3,286 sites during the 4.5-year timeframe covered by the data. Of those, 33 percent were projects run by union employers and 67 percent had nonunion contractors. Mendelson said the agency targets inspections in areas where dangerous construction site conditions are most likely to occur, such as brownfield redevelopment jobs, gut renovations, and new construction in upzoned or downzoned areas. It does not target sites based on union affiliation.

Mendelson said the agency tends to find more dangerous conditions at sites run by small contractors established as limited liability corporations; sites that use day laborers, who are often untrained in basic safety requirements and unlikely to report unsafe conditions; and sites that lack dedicated safety inspectors.