No Looking Back

Construction continues at the four-school Mott Haven campus, despite a legal setback for city.

By Debra Wood

Crews continue work on the Mott Haven Campus, a four-school complex on a former brownfield in the Bronx, even after a Supreme Court ruling that ordered the New York City School Construction Authority to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement detailing a long-term maintenance and monitoring plan for the site.

The Mott Haven Campus faces active rail tracks on a sloping site that will provide space for athletic facilities as well as four schools. (Photo courtesy of bernstein associates photographers)

“We’re moving ahead anyway,” says Fred Abbate, executive project manager for the DeMatteis Organizations of Elmont, N.Y., contractor on the $160 million project.

The New York Lawyers for the Public Interest represented the Bronx Committee for Toxic Free Schools, a community group, in pursing a long-term maintenance and monitoring plan. Acting Justice Patricia Anne Williams of the Supreme Court of the State of New York in the Bronx issued the ruling on Oct. 16, which requires the School Construction Authority to make additional plans for long-term monitoring.

In the past, the city-owned, 8.7-acre site along the Metro North rail tracks was used as a railroad yard, laundry facility and manufactured gas plant. Volatile and semivolatile organic compounds and metals were found in the soil and groundwater.

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The New York City Law Department did not respond to requests for information about the case.

The city completed a $30 million cleanup, including extensive soil removal and capping of the site, when DeMatteis began construction on a different portion of the property in February 2007. Abbate anticipates completion in November 2010.

The 286,000-sq-ft facility will house 2,310 fifth- through 12th-grade students in two high schools, an intermediate school and a charter school. The campus also provides a performing arts center and recreation space for off-hours public events.

“It’s revitalizing that neighborhood and that area of the Bronx,” says Aaron Schwarz, principal and director at Perkins Eastman, which designed the contemporary campus in association with Alexander Gorlin Architects, both of New York. In addition, he says, the Board of Education has determined students learn better in smaller schools.

The four schools, despite being housed within one mega-structure, will have separate entrances. The first floor flows below four, four-story classroom buildings and connects the schools. The site slopes about 30 ft from the sidewalk to the train tracks below. Five levels and athletic fields are visible on the east side and three to four levels on the west.

Classrooms are in the towers and in the basement levels. There are competition and practice gymnasiums, a 600-seat performance arts center/auditorium, library and two cafeterias and kitchens.

Marge Feinberg, spokesperson for the School Construction Authority, says in an e-mail response to questions about the campus, “This is our largest complex and one that meets the need of a district in need of additional high school seats.”

A concept comes to life

The South Bronx Churches, a coalition of neighborhood congregations, nonprofits and homeowner groups, originally conceived the idea of placing four smaller schools on one site in an effort to share amenities such as a gymnasium and performing arts center, says Mike Gecan, senior organizer for the metropolitan Industrial Areas Foundation, representing the churches, which operate two small public high schools, one of which was running out of space at its existing location.

The city-owned lot has been used, over the years, as a railyard, a laundry facility and a manufactured gas plant. Several site plans before the community settled on the current four-school design. (Photo courtesy of bernstein associates photographers)

“The concept for the campus was to bring together the positives of small schools, each with its own identity, with the positives of a much larger school, with athletic, recreational and arts facilities, in one place,” Gecan says.

The design creates a series of plazas with program areas underneath. Natural light will flow into the buildings, even the ground level, because of the sloping site. Schwarz says he thinks the smaller schools create a safer environment for students.

“This is a wonderful plan that helps the community and the schools together,” says Alexander Gorlin, founder of Alexander Gorlin Architects. “It’s individual but communal at the same time.”

Building the structure

The steel-frame structure sits on driven and a few auger-cast piles on the west elevation, near an existing retaining wall. The piles average 30 ft deep and range in depth to 68 ft. In a few areas, the site required nine 24-in. caissons. A high water table necessitated dewatering.

“We put a Liquid Boot down, which is like a membrane to suppress any vapors or toxins from coming through the concrete,” project manager Abbate says. “Workers put in a SSDS [subslab depressurization system], perforated pipes that will catch any gases, and then, the gases go up through a stack and are expelled through the roof of the building.”

The Liquid Boot consists of between 6 and 10 in. of stone, covered by the SSDS pipe. A sock covers the pipe. Then additional stone is placed, followed by a black membrane over the stone. Installation and drying took place at warm ambient air temperatures.

“The Liquid Boot people put a blue membrane down, then put a light fabric over it and spray it,” Abbate says.

Rebar and a structural slab is placed on top of the membrane.

Masonry and slab on grade were progressing at the end of 2008. Mechanical work was ongoing. Face block, brick, metal panels and a small amount of curtain wall clad the exterior.

“It’s a huge community resource,” Schwarz says. “The roof of this podium is all playground and garden spaces, so depending on [whether the] school wants to open on weekends and summer, this is a park.”

Team box:

Owner: New York City School Construction Authority, New York
Contractor: The DeMatteis Organizations, Elmont, N.Y.
Architects: Alexander Gorlin Architects, New York, and Perkins Eastman, New York