The budget is up to $1.4 billion, the design work is finishing, and now a late spring or early summer groundbreaking is on the calendar for a new 82,000-seat stadium that will be the new home for the New York Giants and New York Jets pro football franchises in East Rutherford, N.J.

The original budget released last year, when the two teams announced their joint plan, was $750 million, which later rose to $1 billion in the spring of 2006 and has since grown to the current $1.4 billion tab, an increase that a spokeswoman for the teams attributed to rising construction costs. The existing Giants Stadium, designed by Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum Sport of Kansas City, opened in 1976 and cost $75 million to build.

The new stadium that would open in 2010 is set to rise in the existing parking lot of the Meadowlands sports complex roughly in the center of a triangle between the three existing venues on the site – Giants Stadium, the harness racetrack, and the Continental Airlines Arena – and next to a new $150 rail station that New Jersey Transit is building. The new facility is being designed as an open-air venue with 217 luxury box suites, and would also host concerts and other events.

The New Meadowlands Football Stadium LLC partnership between the two teams recently signed on Skanska USA Building of Parsippany, N.J., as design-build contractor on a $998 million contract to build the stadium and related facilities. Its Skanska USA Civil affiliate out of Whitestone, N.Y., will act as a subcontractor handling steel works in a $150 million assignment under the main contract. Sweden-based Skanska reported that the contract is its single largest order ever in the United States.

Skanska will collaborate with Kansas City-based 360 Architecture, an architect the teams hired last year, on the exterior design.

Initial site prep work on the 55-acre footprint began earlier this year with limited test drilling, along with extensive exterior design planning, which is slated to finish this spring. The stadium will be the first built to function as the home for two National Football League teams.

The Giants plan to build a main office and practice facilities on an additional nearby 20 acres, while the Jets will build a new corporate headquarters and training facility in Florham Park, N.J., relocating from the franchise’s longtime home on Long Island.

The Jets have signed on David Childs and Roger Duffy of the New York office of Chicago-based Skidmore, Owings & Merrill as lead architect and Tom Krizmanic of STUDIOS Architecture in New York as interior designer for the facility. In addition to the 120,000 sq ft facility, the site will have four outdoor practice fields and one indoor field. The team last year described the project as a $20 million effort.

Construction is set to finish in April on the $81 million Center for Functional Nanomaterials, a new facility in Upton, N.Y., that will enable the Brookhaven National Laboratory to fabricate and study nanoscale materials. 

The contemporary-style building has a metal and glass exterior that encases its specialized interiors, which have 20-ft ceilings and high-tech equipment, such as electron microscopy and lithography-based fabrication facilities. The 94,500-sq-ft facility will occupy nine sq acres and accommodate 150 people.

Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences, the project is expected to earn at least the certified level of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program, with features such as systems that regulate daylight penetration for more efficient lighting and HVAC modulation. It might have enough points for a silver rating despite the fact that laboratories are “energy hogs,” says Kent Bonner, design architect in Alexandria, Va., for HDR Architecture of Omaha, Neb., the lead architectural and engineering firm for the project.

The design also strategically located the mechanical equipment, says Bonner.

“Instead of having it all in the penthouse, we tried to enclose it on the second floor so the systems sit directly above the labs,” he adds.

The team also incorporated floor slabs that are twice as thick as normal for an office because of the need to limit vibrations that could impact highly sensitive scientific equipment.

E.W. Howell of Woodbury, N.Y., is the general contractor on the $38.5 million construction effort, which began in 2005.

HDR is now designing another science facility on the site, which housed U.S. Army barracks in World War I and later had a nuclear reactor operated by the energy department for testing purposes.

Two condominium projects in Brooklyn are nearing completion in trendy locales – one a conversion of an historic 19th-Century building in Brooklyn Heights, and the other a modern 13-story tower on Smith Street. Meanwhile, a $40 million condominium upgrade project is just getting under way farther east in Brooklyn’s East New York district.

In Brooklyn Heights, United Management of New York is converting the former Franklin Trust building designed by George Morse in 1891 into residential condominiums. NCC is general contractor on the 50,000-sq-ft conversion of the landmark Romanesque-style building at 166 Montague St.

Construction on the $10 million project began in January 2006 and is slated for completion in July. It entails a gut renovation and the addition of a rooftop terrace, balconies, glass entrance, and a sky-lit health club.

The design by Peter Bafitis of New York’s RKT&B Architects will preserve and integrate many of the building’s original architectural features, including Indiana limestone arches, a Spanish-tile mansard roof, a terra cotta body, and rusticated granite at the base.

The Smith Street building, at the convergence of the Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, and Carroll Gardens neighborhoods, entails new construction of a 157,000-sq-ft building, which broke ground in spring 2005 and is set for completion in May. Leviev Boymelgreen of Brooklyn is developing the project, which has a $45 million construction budget.

Meltzer/Mandl Architects of New York is the architect, collaborating with Nick Dine of New York-based Dinersan on interior designs, which feature a contemporary aesthetic.

The Smith contains 50 one-, two-, and three-bedroom condominiums, including eight duplex penthouses and a 93-room hotel component on the first five floors. The units are between 750 and 1,400 sq ft and feature 9-ft ceilings, individual terraces, and large windows. The units range in price from $550,000 to $1,295,000.

In East New York, a pair of Manhattan-based developers has begun a $40 million capital improvement program at the Fairfield Towers apartment complex. Taconic Investment Partners and Apollo Real Estate Advisors bought 983 of the 1,152 units last September under a plan to renovate them and sell the housing at affordable rates, with special incentives for existing tenants.

Originally a subsidized rental development, the 21-acre complex converted to condominiums a decade ago, but the 983 units were never purchased.

The project entails installing new windows, upgrading elevator and heating systems, painting, landscaping, lighting improvements, new balcony and terrace doors, and renovations of public areas across the 19-building development. Tenants can remain in their units for the work, which will take place this year and wrap up in early 2008.

Taconic is acting as its own construction manager using an interior design from Lindsay Newman Architecture and Design of New York and a landscape design plan from HM White Site Architects of New York.

General Motors unveiled a $21 million improvements plan for its facilities in Tonawanda, N.Y., near Buffalo. The work to upgrade existing manufacturing space and install new machinery and equipment will accommodate production for a new diesel engine line.

The work is part of an agreement with the Empire State Development Corporation, from which GM will receive $5 million in subsidies, including a $3.5 million direct grant for the purchase and installation of the machinery. The remaining $1.5 million will come from a New York State Energy Research and Development Authority grant, which will cover various elements, including the installation of energy-efficient lighting and equipment.

PROJECT SNAPSHOT 48 Bond Street Scope: 11-story, 42,000-sq-ft luxury condominium building with a stone and glass façade and 60-ft lap pool. Three penthouses and 14 two-bedroom units starting at $2 million. Developer: Gold Development/Donald Capoccia Construction Cost: $20 million Start/End: August 2006 to Fall 2007 Contractor: DCR Construction Architect: Deborah Berke & Partners Architects