Hudson Crossing

If Hudson Crossing had been built in another location, the $75 million project would have been unremarkable. But at 37th Street and Ninth Avenue, the building is surrounded by three entrances to the Lincoln Tunnel.

Despite dealing with a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week traffic flow, construction never tied up cars going into the tunnel.

"The team took a very messy site and delivered a nice-looking residential building, three months ahead of schedule and $4 million below budget," remarked a jury panel member, about the $43 million project. "It's impressive that it never interfered with traffic."

Hudson Crossing, a 15-story, 259-unit residential apartment complex, is a reinforced concrete structure with two levels of below-grade parking for 160 cars. With a masonry exterior and brick façade with punched-aluminum windows and granite entry, it has 5,000 sq. ft. of retail space on the ground floor for a total gross floor area of approximately 215,000 sq. ft.

The complex amenities include concierge services, 24-hour security, exercise room, terrace, advanced telecommunication services, laundry facilities, a roof deck and tenant storage areas. The apartments have through-wall air-conditioning units, imported stone countertops, wood flooring throughout the living area and tile flooring in the kitchen and bathrooms.

Due to logistical constraints posed by the Lincoln Tunnel, access to the site was restricted to a single location on 37th Street. This required the project team to be in constant communication with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the New York City Police Department to coordinate excavation, debris removal and deliveries of construction material.

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, hampered the project - which broke ground in January 2002. The Port Authority official the team had been working with prior to construction died in the terrorist attacks and original blueprints and plans for the building stored at 1 World Trade Center were destroyed.

Access to the building was constrained by heightened security measures adopted after Sept. 11. Construction workers and vehicles were constantly stopped, searched and required to show identification, which slowed the construction process.

The project team also had to deal with a 40-ft. retaining wall along the 36th Street entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel. With the use of a 24-hour electronic monitoring program that determines movement in the wall, excavation and rock removal was completed without compromising the wall's integrity.

The team established an auxiliary netting system around half the building to prevent loose material from disturbing the wall's stability or impacting traffic entering the tunnel.

To minimize interruption of traffic flow into the Lincoln Tunnel during installation of utility services, the team determined that the utility companies should work at night and implemented an overtime program with Con Edison, which required a tremendous amount of effort and cooperation with the unions and municipal agencies.