Sarah Darville Water main construction at Cooper Square.The steel beams of 51 Astor Place now loom over the entrance to the 6 train. High school students will soon be attending class at Cooper Square. And city contractors are still tearing up asphalt to repair a vital water main.
Here’s a roundup of the latest news on four projects that will transform the gateway to the neighborhood.
Courtesy of Sciame Construction Corp A rendering of 51 Astor.51 Astor Place
In May, Commercial Observer reported that Hult International Business School was negotiating to take the second floor at the black-glass tower being built at the corner of St. Marks Place and Fourth Avenue. But William Lyman, Vice President of Global Development at the school says it is no longer pursuing the space. That deal would have satisfied a requirement that the building host at least one educational institution. Who will occupy the rest of the space remains a mystery. Microsoft and IBM have previously been rumored to be interested in moving in. Read more…
Kyle Terwillegar After initially announcing that a water main project in Cooper Square would be finished by the winter, city officials now say it won’t be completed until spring 2012 at the earliest.If you’ve walked around Cooper Square for the past few weeks, you’ve probably seen how it’s been turned into a labyrinth of construction barricades and detoured traffic due to the replacement of water mains in the area.
Well, the excavation overtaking much of the intersection of the Bowery and Fourth Avenue will not be finished anytime soon. After originally announcing that the project would be finished this winter, officials now say that the work won’t be completed until spring 2012 at the earliest.
Ray Martin, the operating engineer at the site, which stretches from Cooper Square to East Fourth Street, said on Thursday that the work wouldn’t be finished until summer of next year.
“The timeline changes all the time, there’s a lot of utilities in the ground,” Martin said.
A spokesman for the Department of Design and Construction, Craig Chin, took a more optimistic view, saying that work could be completed by spring 2012. But he did not dispute that the $10.8 million job, which involves replacing antiquated water mains up to Astor Place, is a tough one.
“If you look at the open trench, it’s a tangled web of wires,” Mr. Chin said. “Things have to be moved from one side to the other so they can put in water mains. It’s a painstaking process.”
Kyle Terwillegar contributed information to this post.
