Renovation of Queens Borough Hall

Kouzmanoff Bainton Architects has completed the final design phase of an $18 million, multiphased renovation of Queens Borough Hall at 12-55 Queens Boulevard in Kew Gardens, N.Y. The contracting agency for the project was the Department of Citywide Administrative Services.

To make the best of the building's 140-ft.-long corridors, Kouzmanoff Bainton provided continuous transom windows along one side to bring light into the pubic halls. Alcoves, designed to be used as waiting rooms, also help modulate and visually organize the building's long hallways.

The redesign of the 191,000-sq.-ft., five-story, 62-year-old building has resulted in 63,000 sq. ft. of new office space, which will allow several city agencies currently renting commercial office space to relocate to the seat of borough government.

Kean on Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum

Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum PC has been commissioned by Kean University to design a new sports arena along with a comprehensive renovation of the existing D'Angola Gymnasium. Together they will provide the Union, N.J., campus with a centralized athletic complex and a grand entrance to the university's stadium.

The new facility will include a 65,000-sq.-ft. arena, containing three basketball courts and seating for 2,500 spectators. There will be a running track suspended above the floor. The building will also include locker rooms and offices for the Athletic and Recreation departments. The renovation of the D'Angola Gym will add 10,000 sq. ft. of dance studios, classrooms, sports rehabilitation labs and offices. The project includes the landscaping of 6,000 sq. ft. of outdoor space.

The new building is being designed to use as much natural light as possible, with light shelves to shade the windows from intense sunlight. Natural ventilation, including operable windows, will minimize the need for air conditioning. Photovoltaic cells will be used to generate electrical energy for supplemental lighting and a geothermal heat pump system will be used as the primary HVAC system. The system will require drilling 100 wells, each 400 ft. deep, utilizing the Earth to reject and absorb heat. Wherever possible, materials that do not require coatings or finishes will be used to minimize off gassing, conserve resources and reduce costs.

The entire project is scheduled for completion in July 2005.

New Mercantile Exchange

Peter Skujins Architect PC and Stonehill & Taylor Architects, two SoHo-based firms, joined forces to design a new back-up trading facility for the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Soon after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Mercantile Exchange, which is located in the World Financial Center, adjacent to Ground Zero, decided to build a recovery site and back-up facility outside the city.

The Exchange specializes in the trading of energy and precious metals futures. Its traders use the "open outcry" trading method. Traders, clustered around circular trading rings, interact with each other verbally and with hand signals to execute trades.

The new $12 million-trading floor, located at a secret Long Island location, consists of ten such trading rings. The rings are surrounded by 600 booths, which contain some 2,000 telephones where clerks can take incoming telephone orders. The rings can be made larger or smaller, depending on market conditions. The new 40,000-sq.-ft. facility, which can accommodate 2,500 people, replicates all the essentials of the Exchange in Manhattan.

The structural engineer on the job was Valerio Associates, which is based in Mineola, N.Y. Robert Derector Associates of New York City did the mechanical, electrical, plumbing and fire safety engineering. The construction manager was OD&P Contracting of New York City.

The back-up exchange will remain idle unless a crisis strikes.

Passero Designs Dual YMCAs

Passero Associates was recently selected by the YMCA of Greater Rochester to design a new west side YMCA in Gates, N.Y., and an east side facility in Penfield N.Y.
To get the job done, the Rochester-based Passero put together a design team that includes itself performing architectural and civil engineering design, M/E Engineering performing mechanical and electrical engineering design, and Shore Tilbe Irwin & Partners, which is based in Toronto, serving as the team's design architects. Shore Tilbe Irwin has designed 12 new YMCAs and dozens of YMCA expansion and renovation projects.

PB Bridge Wins in Jersey

Princeton, N.J.-based Parson Brinckerhoff was the Grand Award winner in the 2003 Engineering Excellence Award competition sponsored by the Consulting Engineers Council of New Jersey.

PB was cited for its design of the Ocean City-Longport Bridge, which opened in July 2002 and spans the Great Egg Harbor Inlet leading to the Atlantic Ocean between the Ocean City barrier island and the southern New Jersey mainland.

The design team developed innovative techniques to minimize the amount of work that had to be performed in the site's deep and turbulent waters.

These innovations included a spliced girder design using post-tensioning of the pier table girders to the pier cap to eliminate falsework towers; the use of large precast concrete tub cofferdams to construct pile caps at the water line; and the use of half-depth, 5.5-in.-thick, precast, prestressed concrete panels as both the formwork and the bottom half of the structural concrete deck slab.

Erie Canal

The Empire State Development Corp. awarded Parsons Brinckerhoff with the contract to provide engineering design for the Erie Canal Harbor Project, a waterfront redevelopment in Buffalo, N.Y.

The project involves the re-watering of "Commercial Slip," the former location of the western end of the Erie Canal at the Buffalo River. In the early 19th Century, the Erie Canal connected Buffalo and Lake Erie with Albany and the Hudson River and was the major means of freight transport between New York City and what was then the western frontier.

Major components of the project include reconstruction of historic bulkhead walls, the creation of mooring facilities for Great Lakes cruise vessels, the re-creation of a historic bridge and the demolition and relocation of a combined sewer overflow out fall. The redevelopment is an anchor project for adjacent development projects, including the redevelopment of the Memorial Auditorium into an entertainment and retail complex, a new parking garage and an intermodal station.

Construction will begin in late 2004, with completion scheduled for 2007.