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660 Twelfth Avenue
Cost: $80 million
Development
Team
Owner/Developer: Rockrose Development Corp., NYC
Tenant: Federal Express Corp., Rochester, N.Y.
Architect: Vollmer Associates, NYC
Associate Architect: Goshow Architects, NYC
Structural Engineer: The Cantor Seinuk Group, NYC
MEP Engineer: Cosentini Associates, NYC
Demolition Contractor: A. Russo Wrecking Inc., Lawrence, N.Y.
Excavation and Foundation Contractor: Mayrich Construction Corp., Bronx, N.Y.
Concrete Superstructure: Carlton Concrete Corp., Mineola, N.Y.
Structural Steel: Interstate Iron Works Corp., Whitehouse, N.J.
Electric Contractor: High Rise Electric Inc., Long Island City, N.Y.
Plumbing Contractor: Almar Plumbing and Heating Corp., South Ozone Park, N.Y.
HVAC Contractor: Martin Associates, Flushing, N.Y.
When Rockrose Development Corp. began buying up lots on 12th Avenue between
48th and 49th streets, it had in mind the construction of Manhattan's first
ground-up telco hotel, with an overnight delivery service to function out of
the lower floors.
David Kluge, senior architect with Vollmer Associates LLP, worked with a cadre
of consultants to make sure the new facility would meet all the structural and
technical requirements of a building hosting the servers and switches that make
the Internet a reality.
Then the bottom fell out of the telco hotel market (nationally the vacancy
rate in such facilities is currently hovering at about 40 percent) and changes
had to be made.
The building that was completed last year at 660 12th Ave. is two stories high
with a cellar. Federal Express Corp., which holds a 25-year lease, opened shop
in March. The ground floor provides space for the off- and on-loading of Newark
Airport-bound trucks and the distribution of their packages via conveyors to
140 van locations on the cellar and second-floor levels.
At the same time, the basement of the $80 million facility has the capacity
to house a 140,000-gallon fuel tank farm that could supply 23 roof-top generators
and 22 transformers, all required to provide the power redundancy needed by
Internet tenants. The building can also provide 30 watts per sq. ft., the power
necessary to cool racked computers and other Internet equipment.
None of that is needed - at least for now.
It also has a large lobby on 12th Avenue for future tenants and four empty
elevator shafts for upper floors that don't yet exist.
"The hard thing about this project was designing a building, much of which
was not going to be built immediately," Kluge said. "Structurally,
it can take another six floors above what is built now."
Patricia Dunphy, a vice president with Rockrose, added: "It was a heartbreaker
because we had designed such a beautiful building when the telco market collapsed
under us. We had to go ahead (with construction) because we had already committed
to Fed Ex."
Kluge and Dunphy are confident that the remaining six floors will be built
when the market allows.
"I don't have a crystal ball; I don't know when or for what kind of tenant,"
Dunphy said. "Right now I doubt it will be telco. It may be something we
can't even imagine yet."
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