|
Best of 2006 Awards
New York County Family Court
AWARD OF MERIT: Rehabilitation, Renovation, and Restoration
The New York County Family Court building in Lower Manhattan was known to its visitors and staff as a bleak, dark, and intimidating structure.
First opened in 1975, the black granite-clad building recently began to suffer from mechanical failures and deterioration. The city actually had to build a permanent covered sidewalk to protect visitors from falling debris at points where the exterior wall was coming loose from its anchorage.
In 2002, the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York began oversight of a project to renovate the building to meet city building codes and to make it more attractive.
The $34 million effort completed in September resulted in a dramatic makeover that left the building and its entrance more inviting and the lobby more visible, spacious, and easy to maneuver. To increase accessibility within the building and make security checkpoint lines more logical, the construction team had to reconfigure seven structural columns originally set at 45-degree angles at the front end of the building to instead stand at 90-degree angles perpendicular to the structure. The work took place while the building remained operational, forcing the construction team to follow a careful structural shoring plan to stabilize the upper floors while it demolished old columns and installed the new ones.
The plan involved several steps, including the installation of new beams supported by temporary steel columns, which were topped by hydraulically jacked plates that helped to support the eight upper floors. The team ensured that the new columns would not undermine the foundation by doweling and securing them into existing column footings below grade.
|
Relocating the seven columns helped bring more sunlight into the dark building and increased the lobby size to 15,000 sq. ft., allowing for installation of additional security equipment to process visitors. The team also refaced the exterior by temporarily closing existing window openings, removing the black granite façade, and replacing it with less-forbidding light-colored granite and new curtain wall.
“It was a very difficult phasing project,” said one judge. “They were operating on certain floors, not operating on other floors, and they actually worked during the day while the courts were in session, not only at night and on the weekends.”
The project also entailed the removal of exterior plaza decks and light wells, installation of a new terrazzo floor, and mounting of limestone panel walls and custom wood ceiling panels.
Key Players
Owner: City of New York; New York State Office of Court Administration
Program Manager: Dormitory Authority of the State of New York
Construction Manager: Morganti Group
General Contractor: J. Petrocelli Construction
Architect: Mitchell Giurgola Architects
M-E-P Engineer: Cosentini Associates
Structural Engineer: Ysrael A. Seinuk PC
Civil-Geotechnical Engineer: Langan Engineering
Column Work: Urban Foundation and Engineering
Electric: Seven Star Electric
Plumbing: Varsity Plumbing
HVAC: Pen Enterprise
|
print this page
e-mail this page
