Hyatt Regency at South Pier

Cost: $52.5 million

Development Team

Owner: Cal harbor Urban Renewal Associates (A joint venture of Hyatt Development Corp., Chicago and Mack-Cali Realty Corp., Cranford, N.J.)
Construction Manager: AMEC, NYC
Architect: Brennan Beer Gorman/Monk, NYC
Structural Engineer: The Cantor Seinuk Group, NYC
Mechanical Engineer: Cosentini Associates, NYC
Foundation Contractor: Schiavone Construction, SEA BRIGHT, N.J.
Concrete Contractor: Forsa, Little Ferry, N.J.

Mack-Cali Realty Corp.'s dream of turning its Jersey City Harborside Financial Center into a "City Within a City" took a significant step forward last year with the completion of a Hyatt Regency Hotel on the south pier of the complex.

The new $52.5 million, 287,000-sq-ft., 9-story hotel is built on a 100-year-old railroad pier. In its first-ever waterborne precast project, foundation subcontractor Shiavone Construction created the entire 500 yds. of precast pier deck at a waterfront casting yard in Sea Bright, N.J. Slabs that were too heavy for the firm's casting yard crane were cast on a barge, towed to the site and then lifted into place.

Once the pier was ready, a project crane was placed on a barge on the pier's upriver north side, and construction manager, AMEC of New York City, studied both tides and wind patterns in order to plan the best lift times of the day.

Forsa Construction Co., the Little Ferry, N.J.-based concrete superstructure contractor, then devised ways of delivering and pumping concrete from a barge.

Brennan Beer Gorman/Monk, the NYC-based architecture firm that designed the hotel, had to figure out how to build it with no basement. It came up with a 5-ft.-wide by 5-ft.-tall by 400-ft.-long concrete trough on the underside of the pier that houses the hotel's rainwater and wastewater pipes, protecting them from freezing temperatures, river ice and debris. The project was completed two months ahead of schedule.