Roads and Parks Round out Soup-to-Nuts Development

by Tom Nicholson

Building the West Side's Riverside South residential development has involved a big infrastructure workload. Upon its eventual completion, the work on infrastructure and parkland construction at the site between 59th and 72nd streets will cost roughly $150 million.

As New York-based Bovis Lend Lease and HRH Construction each build the residential high-rises, they are also constructing the roadways that serve the new towers, as well as building parks, and burying sanitary sewers, storm drains, gas and telephone lines, and water mains. The work requires extensive coordination with New York City's departments of transportation, parks, and environmental protection.

"They are extending the roadway with every building that goes up," said Alan Dzbanek of Hudson Waterfront Associates, the developer. Dzbanek, who left Hudson Waterfront in June, added that Bovis has handled most of the work.

advertisement

The roadway work calls for construction of two new streets that run north and south on the 74.6-acre site: Riverside Boulevard from 59th to 71st streets along the western edge of the development; and Freedom Place South, which is located one block east and will stretch from 61st to 64th streets. The team is also building the east-west numbered cross streets that connect to the new north-south roads.

So far, Riverside Boulevard is complete from 71st to 65th streets as the development builds out, largely from north to south. The teams also completed new sections to each cross street. The cross streets from 64th to 60th streets are up next.

The existing portion of Riverside Boulevard actually sits on a 300-ft.-long relieving platform that the project teams have constructed in front of each building. The platform, a 230-ft.- wide and 3-ft.-thick concrete mat, compensates for weak topsoil by sitting on piles driven into the Manhattan bedrock.

"The relieving platform sits on about 1,000 piles," said Ray Totillo, project manager for Bovis. "It serves as a surface for subgrade because of the geology there, close to the river."

Totillo said crews are installing 24-in. sanitary sewer pipe, 18-in. stormdrain pipes, and 6-in. water mains into the roadbed. They are also installing streetlights, fire hydrants, and other infrastructure. The utilities so far have gone into 30 to 40 ft. of compacted earth placed on top of the platform as support for the roadbed, though future portions of Riverside Blvd. are expected to instead have a tunnel that will allow eventual relocation of the elevated DiMaggio Highway.

The project also entails the construction of six, one-span bridges on the new cross streets in order to allow them to pass over the active Amtrak rails that run through the site between the development and West End Avenue. The bridges will be located at every other street from 62nd to 72nd streets.

Bovis is also constructing the 21.5-acre waterside park between the development and the Hudson River. The job is about halfway complete, with some parts already open to the public as construction continues.

The $62 million Riverside Park South will eventually stretch from 59th to 72nd streets. New York-based landscape architect Thomas Balsley Associates designed the park on the site of a former railroad yard.

"This is a new park for the 21st Century with a deep respect for [the site's] past," said Thomas Balsley, the principal designer. "The park offers a diverse shoreline experience."

The park's design integrates ramps, piers, a rusted gantry, and other leftover features from the railroad yard. Bovis is on phase three of a seven-phase schedule. It has completed 11 acres valued at $19.5 million, with a completion of the four-acre third phase targeted for later this year.

Balsley said the early phases involved constructing shade structures, wooden walkways, terraces and plazas with seating, a playground, and a 750 ft. pier jutting out into the river that is built atop an old wooden shipping pier. Native flora, such as marsh grasses, are planted throughout the park.

Later phases of work will add new east-west access points, shade structures, plazas, a shoreline esplanade on the southern side, courts for basketball and other sports, children's playgrounds, community gardens, and outdoor concession areas. The city will own the park, but the building owners will be responsible for maintaining it.