Development soon to begin at the Rikers next door

Queens Chronicle 

The Adams administration has awarded a $3.9 billion contract to design and build the new Queens community jail.

The city’s Department of Design and Construction has chosen the Leon D. DeMatteis Construction Corp. of Elmont, LI, for the project. In a related matter, the DDC awarded a $2.9 billion contract for the new Bronx jail.

In an email, a DDC spokesman said construction on the Queens facility will start in August.  It will have a maximum height of 195 feet, and will total 764,350 square feet. Construction is scheduled to begin in August. It will be built behind the Queens Criminal Courthouse, on Queens Boulevard in Kew Gardens. Work on adjacent buildings and a nearby parking garage already are well underway.

The DDC email stressed while the contract with DeMatteis runs through 2031, that does not mean construction will take that long; and that the city will work with the firm to find some time savings.

The city by law is required to shut down Rikers Island as a jail by 2027, though Mayor Adams and numerous other public officials have expressed concern over whether it will be accomplished on time. New jails in each borough except Staten Island are slated to have space for just over 4,000 inmates. The present population of Rikers is about 6,000.

The jail will have 1,040 beds. Queens is the only site for female detainees and will have 590 beds for men and 450 for women. It will require duplicate admission and transport areas, visiting areas, health services, cafeteria and elevators. It also will have a nursing area for women. All that, the DDC said, accounts for the higher cost.

Kew Gardens tower jail already is a pain in the ass

 

NY Post

New York City is ramping up construction of a new jail in Queens as part of its plan to phase out problem-plagued Rikers Island — sparking outrage from residents, The Post has learned.

The presence of a lockup became more tangible for Kew Gardens locals recently when the Department of Design and Construction sent out a notice that it was restricting access to the area around Queens Borough Hall to lay the groundwork for the jail.

“We are upgrading the infrastructure in your community. These temporary access restrictions are necessary to facilitate preliminary work for the offset of a 48” Trunk Water Main for the Queens Borough Based Jail in the above-mentioned location,” the DDC said.

The community bulletin was a gut punch for many residents who said they don’t want their neighborhood to house accused criminals.

“I oppose the jail. It’s simply a safety issue,” said 31-year-old neighbor Michael Brocking.

Yan Lin, a mother of three boys ages 7 to 14, added: “We don’t need the criminal element around here.”

  don’t like the jail. We have a good community. I love this community,” the concerned mom said.

Howard Cohn, a 75-year-old retired school teacher, said, “I don’t want to be living next to criminals.”

“A jail is going to lower the property values here,” he added.

Mayor Eric Adams had promised to deliver on former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s $8.3 billion plan to shutter Rikers Island’s troubled jail complex and replace it with four smaller, more humane high-rise lockups in each of the city’s boroughs but Staten Island.

Update:

This was found at one of the borough tower jails development site in Chinatown. The DDC is being quite defiantly defensive about what they are doing.

City construction notice signs are now editorialized… pic.twitter.com/oxFPFiiEx3

— Reza Chowdhury (@RezaC1) May 16, 2022

College Point sewer dirt finally removed

  

Queens Chronicle

 Just two months ago, a pile of potentially contaminated, excavated dirt stood at least three stories high at 119th Street and 20th Avenue, towering over Flushing Bay.

Now, it seems, the pile, is gone — but only after the state Department of Conservation issued nine different violations to city Department of Design and Construction-hired contractor EIC Associates for its failure to adhere to environmental protection guidelines.

Community Board 7’s environmental chair, visiting scientist and faculty member at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution James Cervino, who not only filed complaints with the state but also with the Environmental Protection Agency, is thrilled.

“They got the pile down to a manageable minimum,” Cervino said. “[That’s what happens] when the DEC comes in.”

The pile’s disappearance comes after the Chronicle reported extensively on the environmental concerns at the site in question. Cervino credited the change in large part to the Chronicle’s work.

The site is part of the College Point sewer update, a project that has been ongoing for more than five years now, and had effectively functioned as a transfer station for demolition dirt from the entire 20-block project.

That excavated material was found to have contained creosote timbers, which can be harmful when in contact with soil and water, which, considering its proximity to Flushing Bay, raised some red flags.

When the Chronicle previously asked Joseph A. Branco, a founding partner of EIC, whether the site was a transfer station, he said, “What we have is the materials that are disposed of [for the whole project], every two or three days, we have materials going out. I mean, these are the excavated material[s] going out, but it’s not a transfer station, per se.”

EIC could not be reached for comment for this story.

Since the Chronicle last reported on the issue in mid-February, a DEC spokesperson has said that the site is not a transfer station, as the permits issued for the project do not allow for one.

However, the Chronicle also obtained documentation of the alleged DDC and EIC violations at the 119th Street location. Among the nine different violations are a “substantially inadequate” Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan. More specifically, that violation notes that the “construction staging/stockpiling area” is not in the SWPPP.

City prioritizing new Queens jail despite pandemic and lawsuits

To all KGCA members with email addresses on file and Friends of KGCA:

Today we were apprised of the attached plans and drawings prepared by the NY City Department of Design and Construction ("DDC") for the proposed Kew Gardens Jail Parking Garage and Community Space. They are to be presented by DDC via Internet to Community Board 9's Land Use Committee for discussion (via Internet) Thursday evening, March 25.

Aside from confirming that the City is proceeding with the multi-billion dollar, four-borough jails project -- even while the various court cases contesting the project are still pending -- they came as a sickening surprise. These plans had NO community input and they are very different and far removed from those concepts described or implied during previous discussions over the last two years. In this they are like the plans for the jail project itself -- developed in secret by a small group in the Mayor's office with no input from any affected community or the Community Board and let loose upon us as a done deal.

We are not even sure what the City expects from this meeting -- consent, feedback or is it just another procedural box to be checked off and any input from the Community will be irrelevant?

To avail yourself of the DDC presentation, open the attachment below.

Sincerely,

Dominick Pistone, President, KGCA
Murray Berger, Executive Chairman, KGCA

Kew Gardens jail parking lot and community space by queenscrapper on Scribd

de Blasio's DDC defiantly shady about East River Park reconstruction

 

AMNY

A much sought-after ghost study of the East Side Coastal Resiliency (ESCR) that mysteriously could not be traced has suddenly been released to the public, but it is almost unreadable due to heavy redactions.

East River Park Action has been pulling at the threads of the East Side Coastal Resiliency (ESCR) project for about three years now.  The organization—consisting of concerned Lower East Side residents—are opposed to this $1.4 billion plan that would reconstruct approximately 57 acres of coastal parkland from East 25th Street to Montgomery Street.

In 2018, the rationale for moving forward with the ESCR project, rather than a less invasive one, was said to be based on a “Value Engineering Study.” The East River Park Action group filed a Freedom of Information Law request but was told in January by the City’s Department of Design and Construction (DDC) that they did not have this report on file.  East River Park Action is a strong opponent of the ESCR project since the reconstruction will remove over 1,000 trees, which will subsequently be replaced after construction, and pack the land with about eight to ten feet of fill to help elevate the park, making it flood-resistant.

Hurricane Sandy devastated the Lower East Side in 2012, and in response community leaders and city planning agencies had several discussions on how to prevent such large-scale coastal flooding in the area. Originally, a far less expensive plan was discussed for several years but was discarded in favor of the ESCR in 2018. The reasoning for this shift was based on a study that would showcase the pros and cons of this project as well as other pertinent information, which was announced by Mayor Bill de Blasio.

However, according to a tweet by Kirsten Theodos, who shared the report over social media the majority of its pages are blacked out, making it unreadable.

“The new City plan will destroy 57 acres of coastal parkland, fell nearly 1000 mature trees and eliminate the only large outdoor greenspace residents on LES for recreation and wellness. The City plan is twice as expensive, provides no interim flood protection during the many years of construction, & requires unprecedented ecological destruction of the largest municipal park on the LES impacting the residents of the predominantly low income, BIPOC neighborhood,” Theodos wrote in a tweet.

As stated on NYC ESCR project’s website, the plan is set to create “boundaries of this project correspond with the natural “pinch-points” in the 100-year floodplain: areas where the land is higher along the coastline, making it easier to close the system off from water entering from the north and south. The project design integrates flood protection into the community fabric, improving waterfront open spaces and access, rather than walling off the neighborhood.”

 The report’s findings—which states that it was prepared for the City of New York Office of Management and Budget”—is entitled “East Side Coastal Resiliency Elevated Park Alternative Feasibility Analysis” and is dated April 24-26, 2018.  The rest becomes a series of blackened lines where certain particulars have been redacted from public view.

City screws Astoria homeowners financially from shitty water main repair job

(Photo by Jeff Fox/THE CITY)

THE CITY

 Astoria homeowners are fighting to recoup tens of thousands of dollars they say they were forced to spend after a city water main repair snafu sent raw sewage spewing into their homes.

The Department of Design and Construction acknowledged in letters obtained by THE CITY that a “number” of sewer-to-house connections were “inadvertently damaged” as a result of a water main project that began two summers ago.

 “The contractor when excavating on 38th Street affected a series of private sewer connections that were not indicated on the maps,” DDC spokesperson Shoshana Khantold THE CITY. “As a result, several of those lines were severed.”

 Yet some residents on the quiet stretch of 38th Street between 21st Avenue and Ditmars Boulevard say they can’t get city government to pay back the cash they were forced to spend on cleanup.

Some say they’re getting no clear answer on the holdup, while others say they’re caught in a bureaucratic Catch-22: a 90-day statute of limitations that ended before problems emerged.

“All of us got negatively impacted by this work,” said Jeff Fox, 40, a longtime homeowner. “It strikes me as incredibly unfair they can get away with doing shoddy work.”

City allocates additional $8M for Middle Village sewer project

From the NY Post:

The city has finally earmarked $8 million to fix ­aging sewer lines in Middle Village, Queens, that have caused fecal flooding in residents’ basements — a day ­after The Post revealed how the repairs had been promised for a decade.

“My God, I can’t believe it,” said longtime resident Vito Cascione, 60, whose 1985 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham was flooded with sewer water during a recent heavy storm.

“The Post’s article really raised eyebrows and a lot of questions, so hopefully we can get this resolved once and for all,” Cascione said.

The 74th Street and Penelope Avenue sewer project, which was first proposed in 2007, sat unfinished for nine months after contractors dug up contaminated soil at the site and needed the extra dough to safely excavate it.

City Hall confirmed to The Post Friday afternoon the money has been allocated and will be processed through the comptroller’s office “soon.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Design and Construction expects work to resume “by the end of the year.” The contractor in charge of the project said about another year of work is still needed.

Contractor dumped lead contaminated soil near Middle Village school

Photo by Christopher Barca/Queens Chronicle

From the Queens Chronicle:

A $22 million sewer main project in Middle Village that was nearing completion suddenly stalled in December, and no one in the community knew exactly why.

There was some talk among area leaders that workers were transferred to another job site or that they had various problems digging into the ground.

But on Tuesday, Councilman Bob Holden (D-Middle Village) said the real reason for the project’s halting was much scarier.

“The Department of Design and Construction sent four representatives to my office on Friday and they told me the project stopped because of contaminants in the soil,” Holden said. “I asked one gentleman what were the contaminents in the soil.

“He said high levels of lead.”

As if that wasn’t a big enough issue, the lawmaker said that problematic soil that had been excavated during the Penelope Avenue sewer work is sitting in a yard leased by CAC Industries — the project contractor — across the street from PS/IS 128, a K-8 school in Middle Village.

The massive mounds of dirt had been sitting uncovered at the site, possibly for months, as a tarp wasn’t placed over them until this week.

And at both a press conference and Community Education Council District 24’s monthly meeting on Tuesday, Holden said the person who spoke about the high lead levels — a senior DDC project manager based in the immediate area — was contradicted by his colleagues over how dangerous the soil was and if it was covered.

The lawmaker added he visited the site last Friday and noticed the massive mound of soil was uncovered. But on Monday, he claimed, DDC Acting Commissioner Ana Barrio falsely told him it had been covered the entire time and that the agency project manager “misspoke” regarding lead levels.

Cosmetic repairs on Calamus Avenue

The Department of Design and Construction is offering to fix sidewalk cracks on Calamus Avenue resulting from a 4-year long sewer installation project.

Meanwhile, people have damaged homes and foundations...

Perhaps Ms. Crowley or Comptroller Stringer can get the City to offer a bigger bone than this. (Sorry I am in a comical mood this morning.)

Calamus Ave residents concerned about water quality

From PIX11:

The DDC has now changed its regulations as a result of the mistake in Maspeth. In a statement to PIX11, a spokesman says “The agency has added a new specification to its construction requirements that mandates that only hose manufactured for potable water be used in future projects.”

So you mean to tell me that there was no regulation in place prior to this that hoses for drinking water be made for drinking water? How many other have been affected by contractors cutting corners?

Scientist discovers MacNeil Park sewage problem

From QNS:

At first glance, the bubbling puddle shown on video taken at College Point‘s MacNeil Park this weekend doesn’t look that bad. The smell and the contents of the water, however, told a much more dangerous story.

Dr. James Cervino, a local marine scientist, told QNS that the geyser popped in the park in the last few days. He took a sample of the water for testing which revealed that it contained two different types of bacteria — E.coli and enterococcus — typically found in raw sewage.

At first, no one in the neighborhood knew for certain how or why the wretched geyser formed, according to Cervino. The city’s Parks Department, however, was able to provide an answer on Monday afternoon.

“There was a blockage in the sewer line which caused a backup in MacNeil Park,” a Parks Department spokesperson told QNS on Aug. 7. “Parks plumbers have been on site since 8 a.m. this morning to assess the situation. Parks hired a cesspool company to clear the line, and we are working with DDC (the Department of Design and Construction) to repair the issue.”

While the sewage-laden area was roped off, the rest of MacNeil Park remains open, the Parks Department added.

The Parks Department’s response came after state Senator Tony Avella — whom Cervino alerted about the condition over the weekend — reached out to the city’s Parks Department, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Department of Health. He then followed up on Aug. 7 with a letter to the commissioners of all three agencies demanding that the problem be fixed, as well as a joint investigation to figure out what happened.

City contractors damage property then skedaddle

From NY1:

A busted pool, a broken shed, and a missing fence — that's just some of the damage Frank Harnisher says a city contractor did to his property while working on a project to alleviate chronic flooding on West 11th Road during high tide.

The 78-year-old has fought for months to get the contractor or the city to address the issue. "I can't get them down here, I can't get anybody to talk to me about how they are going to redo my property," he said.

Which was the agreement, according to a 2014 letter from the contracting firm EIC Associates.

Workers used his property at the end of the street to build a cofferdam, a watertight enclosure for construction below the waterline.

The company said it would return the area to its pre-construction condition, but instead Harnisher said it's been one problem after the other.

"When they erected the cofferdam a lot of my property deteriorated, and instead of building it back to its pre-existing condition, they shorted me five feet of property on one side, my existing rock bulkhead on the other side is three feet shorter, and now I'm subject to high tides," Harnisher said.

The contracting firm said it was told to vacate 11th Road to make room for Build it Back construction and couldn't go back.

But when NY1 reached out to the Department of Design and Construction, the agency overseeing the $28 million project, we were told that property that was removed or damaged because of the work will be restored.

Contractors abandon Centreville sewer project

Joanne Cutitto

From the Queens Chronicle:

Workers at the Albert Road sewer project in the Centreville section of Ozone Park have not been spotted on site for close to a month, because they’ve been pulled for another job elsewhere.

While some area residents joked they’re enjoying the peace and quiet, they’re also fuming because the neighborhood has been left a mess by the workers there.

“People now have to live with the mess for a longer term than they should have to,” said Ozone Park Civic Association Howie Kamph. “It’s not fair to the residents.”

A Chronicle reporter on Monday saw streets ripped up and uneven, water mains exposed to the elements, and cones — which looked to be covering a pothole — left in the middle of the street.

“It looks like a third-world country,” said resident Joanne Cutitto. “It’s like there’s no pride in their workmanship.”

The Department of Design and Construction did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story — including if they’re chasing down the contractor, Maspeth Supply, to finish the taxpayer-funded work in the time laid out in the contract.

A person answering the phones at Maspeth Supply — which, according to city records, has received hundreds of millions of dollars in city contracts for water main and sewer work — said to send an email to the company’s owner, which was not responded to by press time.

The Department of Bureaucracy

From the Wall Street Journal:

New York City’s libraries and other cultural organizations looking to build facilities or make repairs often endure a staggeringly long process and added costs under the agency that manages such city-funded projects, a report finds.

The city’s Department of Design and Construction was created in 1996 to consolidate and more efficiently manage the city’s capital projects. But a study issued by the Center for an Urban Future, a nonpartisan policy think tank, found that delays and cost overruns were pervasive among the 144 library and cultural projects analyzed between 2010 and 2014.

The study revealed that the median cost of construction for new library and cultural buildings managed by the DDC was $930 a square foot, compared with $425 to $500 a square foot range for speculative office construction costs estimated by a New York Building Congress analysis of 2015 New York City construction costs.

The main problem: Excessive layers of reviews and approvals dragged out these projects, according to the report, conducted in partnership with the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan nonprofit group.

Calamus calamity

From QNS:

Maspeth and Woodside residents have been angered over months of delays in the reconstruction of sewers under Calamus Avenue and 69th Street — and they were even more upset on Thursday night, when they learned the project’s completion is still 15 months away.

Nearly 50 concerned residents of the effected neighborhoods filled the parish hall of St. Mary’s of Winfield on Thursday night to hear why the Calamus Avenue Sewer Project — which has left Calamus Avenue and the surrounding areas a virtual mine field of potholes and craters, detoured the Q47 bus for nearly three years, and been a headache for anyone trying to commute in the area — has yet to move forward.

Ali Mallick, assistant commissioner for the Department of Design and Construction (DDC) North Queens Construction, clarified what documents weren’t accurate and why that was such a major problem for the project. The delays have pushed back the projected completion of the project to May of 2018.

“When I took over about a year ago, I found out that this project was dead, nothing was happening on the project,” Mallick said. “And there were problems with the design due to some unforeseen conditions in the ground because the drawings that we had did not match what was in the ground, so we had to do a major redesign with the work.”

Understanding the communities’ frustrations, Mallick and the DDC are looking at ways to work with the contractor to have the workers expand their work day and even work on some weekends to hopefully expedite the construction process and get the job done before the end of this year.

Other members of the DDC, Department of Transportation (DOT), and the Department of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were on hand to listen and respond to the residents’ concerns.

Noticeably absent from the meeting was a representative from the MTA. Several of the local elected officials reached out to the MTA, alerting them of the meeting and asking them to send a representative.

Glendale plaza construction hurts small businesses

From the Queens Chronicle:

The city, area elected officials and community leaders have reached a deal they hope will alleviate some of the burden pedestrian plaza work had placed on a number of Glendale businesses.

According to Department of Design and Construction representative Ian Michaels and Community Board 5 Chairman Vincent Arcuri Jr., the project at Myrtle and Cooper avenues hit a snag recently, as it was discovered underground Verizon infrastructure had to be moved in order for the project to continue.

But even before the issue with Verizon occurred, a number of area stores had said the restricting of traffic flow and the loss of parking in the area was resulting in declines in sales and customers.

Planted ruin construction underway

From DNA Info:

Repairs to a damaged fountain in Kew Gardens began this week and will include plans to transform the site into a plaza dedicated to women of the borough, according to the Queens borough president.

The $720,000 restoration project by the city's Department of Design and Construction will repair the stonework at the base of a fountain at the corner of Queens Boulevard and Union Turnpike on the ground of Borough Hall. The project will also improve landscaping, install benches and a plaque to honor the borough's women.

Restoration of Civic Virtue statue: $50,000 vs. Creating new plaza: $720,000

Translation: Someone's relative needed a contract.

It's who you know

From DNA Info:

Frustrated workers at the Department of Design and Construction raged at Mayor Bill de Blasio in a letter two years ago, accusing him of doing nothing after they warned him the agency's commissioner was hiring cronies, including the wife of a city councilman, DNAinfo New York has learned.

DDC Commissioner Feniosky Pena-Mora hired Christina Melendez, the wife of Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, as a special assistant to him with a $150,000-a-year salary in June 2014.

Two years earlier, when Pena-Mora faced removal as the dean at Columbia University's engineering school, Rodriguez came to his aid, leading a campaign to keep him in the job.

Melendez, who had previously worked in education, didn’t have a background in engineering or architecture, disciplines normally associated with the DDC. But the DDC position paid $48,000 more than her previous job as an assistant principal, according to city records.

Pena-Mora's hires of Melendez and others shortly after his appointment as commissioner in April 2014 have fueled patronage allegations by DDC employees over the past two years, according to sources.

Some staffers were so outraged that they wrote an anonymous letter to de Blasio complaining about the alleged patronage, the demotions of longtime personnel and Pena-Mora’s abrasive management style.

Sewer project will shave off guy's living room

From the Times Ledger:

The city is taking more than 20,000 square feet from Ozone Park residents under the eminent domain law. The private property grab is meant to alleviate flooding and replace the underground sewage system in the area. For many residents, the project is a long overdue relief. But for some residents, especially those on Bristol Avenue, the changes require them to give up 14 feet deep into their property to make room for widened streets and to install sewer lines in their homes.

The city estimates the cost of the project, called HWQ411B, at more than $41 million. The repairs will include the installation of about 200 catch basins, 15 manholes and thousands of square feet of new sidewalks. According to the Department of Design and Construction, everything will be done by 2018.

“They want to buy the first 14 feet of my house, that puts them in my living room,” Carlos Reitez said. “I have a problem with them forcing me to sell my land to them.”

Reitez recently paid $10,000 for a new holding tank for his household’s waste. While the city will pay “market value” for the land they take from homeowners, they won’t pay Reitez for the costs to install a sewer system.

Reitez said that a city agent told them that the city would only remove the first five feet of his property, which would eat up just his stoop, to make room for a sidewalk. “But then why do they need to buy 14 feet from me?,” he said.

Will Centreville finally get sewers?

From The Forum:

To Centreville residents, or those who live close to Albert Road in Ozone Park, the mere mention of the now 30-years-overdue sewer and infrastructure project for the area will likely be met with more than a bit of skepticism.

The project, first proposed as far back as the Koch administration by the city Department of Design and Construction, is essentially a $42 million plan to alleviate flooding and improve drainage in the area bounded by Linden Boulevard to N. Conduit Avenue, Cross Bay Boulevard to Hawtree and Cohancy streets.

And although the three-year construction plan, which calls for the installation of new catch basins, curbs, sidewalks, pedestrian ramps, sewers and roadway throughout Centreville and the Albert Road area, looks to be finally getting underway, a hard and fast start date continues to be elusive.

Part of the reason for the project’s seemingly endless delays may be rooted in the fact that the city had to acquire private property in order to replace and rebuild sidewalks. And, those familiar with the process say it is both lengthy and time-consuming while residents relocate and await property payments from the city.

At a presentation to the Ozone Park Civic Association this past June, DDC officials listed spring/summer 2015 as the “anticipated” start dates for the major construction.