The developer building two condo towers next to the Battery Park City ballfields still does not know why a piece of plywood fell off the buildings earlier this year.
No one was hurt in the Jan. 28 accident, but the 3-inch-by-8-inch plywood landed near P.S. 150 children who were skating on the B.P.C. ice rink adjacent to Milstein Properties’ new buildings.
“We don’t know how it came out,” Maria Rosenfeld, a development adviser for Milstein, told Community Board 1 last week. “It was a total shock to us.”
“That’s what’s disturbing to us,” replied Linda Belfer, chairperson of C.B. 1’s B.P.C. Committee.
Rosenfeld said the city Dept. of Buildings had just inspected the construction site earlier in the day of the accident and did not note any problems. The contractor scoured the building after the plywood fell but could not determine where exactly it came from or what caused the accident, though wind may have played a role, Rosenfeld said.
The only change Milstein has made since Jan. 28 is to hire one additional site safety coordinator. Milstein’s safety plan already exceeds city codes and includes full-height vertical netting wrapped around the building and extra netting around the exterior elevators, called hoists.
Board members were particularly concerned about the safety of the ballfields once Downtown Little League’s season begins in early April.
The Little League is pleased that contractor Plaza Construction Corp. will not work on the east side of the building, facing the fields, while players are practicing. However, the league is unhappy that Plaza plans to request weekend variances, allowing construction on Saturdays while children are playing on the field.
“We just flat-out hate those variances,” said Mark Costello, a director of Downtown Little League. “Weekend work is a real sore spot. It should be looked at very, very skeptically.”
Thomas D’Ercole, Plaza’s senior project manager, said it’s physically impossible to get all of the needed materials in the building working five days a week.
Milstein plans to open a sales office this spring for the 32-story Liberty Luxe and 22-story Liberty Green. An Asphalt Green community center in the base of the building is slated to open in 2012.
— Julie Shapiro
