Weill Cornell Medical College Belfer Research Building

Researchers, physician-scientists, educators, and students will come from all around the globe to collaborate on the latest discoveries and breakthroughs at Weill Cornell Medical College’s Belfer Research Building. AECOM Tishman served as construction manager for this important project.

New Construction

The project included the construction of a 480,000-square-foot building that includes 13 laboratory floors and two mechanical penthouses—doubling the college’s previous research space. The first two floors contain classrooms, conference rooms, administrative offices, and two lounges, while the rest of the building houses laboratories with an open layout.

Utilizing BIM

We used Building Information Modeling (BIM) early in the project, as this research building required more pipes, ducts, wires, and conduits than a typical office project.

Strategic Demolition Process

Three existing buildings were demolished using small machines and hand tools so as to not disturb the surrounding community. We used a blasting technique and their first-hand knowledge and experience with bedrock conditions in Manhattan to excavate the deep rock on site.

We procured a single tower crane to serve the project’s concrete operations and remain on site to lift and place all of the building’s mechanical plant equipment. To accommodate the extremely tight site logistics, the team divided it into nine sections so crane operations could be performed while other work safely progressed.

The Cocoon

The team implemented the use of the cocoon system—an innovative safety net designed to provide the utmost level of protection to construction workers and the surrounding community—which in turn pushed the schedule ahead by two months.

One World Trade Center

At 1,776 feet tall, One World Trade Center (WTC) is not only the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. Its sheer size, geographic constraints, and operational necessities make it easily one of the region’s — if not the nation’s — most complex projects ever built.

In 2004, AECOM Tishman was selected to provide preconstruction and construction management services for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s 104-story One World Trade Center. As the builder of the original Twin Towers in 1973, AECOM Tishman has been working at the WTC site since 2001, assisting with the 9/11 clean-up efforts and managing more than 11 million square feet of new construction.

Safety considerations on the nation’s tallest building

We implemented an innovative safety cocoon system, resulting in zero total incidents of significance on the project. The cocoon enveloped 16 floors and rose with the building to protect initial floor trades: steel, concrete, and spray fireproofing. This was the first cocoon on a hybrid steel and concrete building.

Collaboration through BIM

We brought together all of the architects, engineers and subcontractors — including electrical, plumbing, fire and life safety, concrete, and others — into one centralized Building Information Modeling (BIM) command center located in the project field office at 7 WTC. This enabled each subcontractor to add their components to the models as they were created in direct collaboration with the other subcontractors.

All while the world watched

One World Trade Center has won numerous awards, including Engineering News-Record’s 2015 Best of the Best Projects in the Office/Retail/Mixed-Use category.

Through carefully devising solutions for impacted thoroughfares and transit facilities, coordinating with teams on adjacent projects, and efficiently managing the various trades and their nearly 2,000 workers, AECOM Tishman’s vested interest and diligent work on this national icon led to its successful completion – all while the world watched.

Lincoln Center

It’s one of the world’s largest sites for the performing arts. New York City’s iconic Lincoln Center is a 16.3-acre (6.6-hectare) cultural campus on Manhattan’s Upper West Side that has been transformed through a recent $US1.2-billion redevelopment that modernized venues, facilities and public spaces, and connected them to the bustling city that surrounds it.

AECOM is providing program management services for the multiphase program to renovate and transform the world’s largest and most complex performing arts campus and home to twelve cultural institutions, including the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Ballet, and the Julliard School of Music. AECOM worked on Phases I and II of the project, as well as on the Atrium at Lincoln Center, which opened on Dec. 17, 2009.

The renovation effort includes the $850-million 65th Street Redevelopment Program, which will create a dynamic “Street of the Arts” along 65th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, uniting Lincoln Center with the surrounding urban landscape and encouraging the interaction of artists, students and the public.

Phase I included:

  • The 100,000-square-foot expansion of the Juilliard School;
  • The complete renovation of Alice Tully Hall (which re-opened in February 2009); and
  • The complete transformation of the North Plaza, including a new bosque, reflecting pool, and signature restaurant.

Phase II included:

  • Encompassing the $190-million Promenade Project, which focuses on the Josie Robertson Plaza, with its iconic central fountain;
  • New grand stairs, flanked by glass canopies, improvements to concourse spaces between venues and connection to nearby subway lines.

The $25-million David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center houses the main visitors’ center, ticketing facilities, a café, and a free performance space. The Atrium has applied to be the first LEED-certified, “green” building on the Lincoln Center campus, and features:

  • Two vertical gardens;
  • A floor-to-ceiling fountain;
  • A media wall with performance information, which also serves as a canvas for video presentations; and
  • 16 “occuli” lighting fixtures that bring natural light into the Atrium space.

Partners
FXFOWLE |
Diller Scofidio + Renfro

Jacob K. Javits Convention Center

AECOM Tishman had the honor of playing a major role in the renovation and expansion of the world-renown Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. Comprising 760,000 square feet, stretching from 34th to 39th streets and from 11th to 12th avenues, this convention center covers a total of 20 acres.

AECOM Tishman’s Operation’s Many Roles:

Our role in the Javits project began as owner’s representative for the refurbishment of the original structure, helping the owner develop the master plan for the project, assisting with the selection of the architectural team, prepared project budgets based on numerous schemes, and preconstruction analysis for a new curtainwall system, new roof, and upgrading building systems and utilities.

Challenges:

  • Making sure the Javits Center continued to run simultaneously with construction while making sure the public was safe and accommodated
  • Creating a computerized structural model of the entire spaceframe to make sure that it did not move during construction
  • Developing criteria for a cart to support the various roof top heating and cooling units (RTU) to be transported and supported since it could not be lifted over the public, which involved The Haul Road & Gantry System, a design-build contract. These carts traveled on rails (Haul Road) and would only be lifted when they were located on the temporary scaffold system outside of the building by the use of a crane or by the Gantry system in a section of the facility which was closed off from the public.

Crystal Palace:

This facility is inspired by the Crystal Palace in the London Exposition of 1851, so the removal and replacement of every pane of glass with new, low-e glass was vital. To keep it operational, AECOM Tishman worked with the structural engineer to devise a platform that allowed for work above and activity below.

New Innovative Upgrades:

A new, LEED-Silver, 110,000-square-foot expansion was constructed adjacent to the existing Javits Center along with a new roof—which boasts the largest green roof in NYC at approximately 6.5 acres. The life safety and mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems were upgraded as well.

Utilizing BIM:

We utilized Building Information Modeling (BIM) to facilitate logistics and scheduling so the majority of the building remained accessible to, and completely safe for, the public at all times.

Grand Central Terminal – East Side Access Development

Every day 750,000 visitors pass through Grand Central Terminal (GCT), making it the largest hub for train traffic in the world. Congestion on crowded regional rail lines is common during morning and evening rush hours, and passengers rely on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to take them where they need to go.

AECOM, a member of the General Engineering Consultant team for the new East Side Access project, is providing all structural engineering and architectural design for the new LIRR terminal within GCT. This is the largest construction project ever undertaken by the MTA.

The East Side Access project will increase rail capacity into Manhattan by nearly 50 percent and save LIRR’s East Side-bound travelers 30 to 40 minutes a day with its “one seat ride” direct connection into GCT. The primary components of the project include the following:

  • New tunnel connections in Queens, in the vicinity of Harold Interlocking within Sunnyside Yard, to connect the LIRR Main Line and Port Washington Branch to the 63rd Street Tunnel under the East River;
  • New hard-rock tunnel boring machines tunneling deep under midtown Manhattan from the 63rd Street Tunnel’s lower level at Second Avenue to a new LIRR terminal directly beneath the existing lower level of GCT;
  • New station caverns—each with an upper and lower level separated by a mezzanine level—directly below the GCT train shed; and
  • A new passenger concourse, located within the footprint of the existing Madison Yard on GCT’s lower level, will include escalator, elevator, and stair connections to Grand Central’s dining concourse and the old arrivals waiting room, along with connections to the 45th Street and 47th Street cross-passages.

NY MTA Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)

AECOM has successfully undertaken the following bus rapid transit (BRT) projects for the New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) in collaboration with New York City Transit:

34th Street Transitway—This 2.2 mile BRT project traverses Manhattan on East 34th Street from the Hudson to the East River. The project includes exclusive bus lanes, off-board fare collection, and enhanced passenger stations with raised platforms for easier boarding and alighting from the vehicles. The project was a recipient of an American Council of Engineering Companies New York, Engineering Excellence Award and became operational in the fall of 2011.

Utica Avenue—Utica Avenue in Brooklyn has been identified by NYCDOT as a priority corridor for transit and safety improvements. AECOM focused primarily on changes to the roadway geometry, such as offset bus lanes that could be implemented in the near future, and also recommended longer-term capital improvements.

LaGuardia Airport to Manhattan BRT—NYCDOT, in collaboration with the Metropolitan Transit Authority, New York City Transit, and the Port Authority of New York New Jersey, contracted with AECOM to explore transit access to LaGuardia Airport through western Queens to Manhattan. The BRT will have a broad array of alignment and service pattern options suitable for different areas of the corridor and will become operational in the spring of 2014.

Webster Avenue Select Bus Service–-AECOM completed detailed conceptual design plans for a phased implementation of BRT services on this 5.3-mile corridor from the hub at East 149th Street and Third Avenue, through Fordham University to the White Plains-Gun Hill Intermodal Terminal. This BRT project began operations in the summer of 2013.

Bruckner-Sheridan Expressway

Before long-term traffic flow and safety concerns in the Bronx, New York, can be addressed, the New York State Department of Transportation is conducting a four-year $12 million Environmental Impact Study (EIS). AECOM is managing the joint venture that is preparing the EIS and developing alternative preliminary designs with construction costs ranging from $100 million to $300 million.

The project’s focus is to relieve the traffic bottleneck at the Bruckner-Sheridan Expressways interchange and to improve access to the Hunts Point Peninsula. The Hunts Point Peninsula is where two of the world’s largest wholesale markets reside – the Hunts Point Meat Market and Hunts Point Produce Market, as well as the new Fulton Fish Market.

AECOM’s work includes extensive advanced transportation modeling to assess traffic movements on local streets and the regional highway network. The assessment process also involves interviewing a wide range of stakeholders at the market and throughout the the peninsula about ways to improve operations and the community’s quality of life by making local and regional infrastructure investments.

USPS Morgan Processing and Distribution Center Green Roof

An AECOM team designed a “green roof” for the Morgan Processing and Distribution Center in Midtown Manhattan, the largest such project in New York City. The seventh-floor rooftop has been transformed from a tar- and stone-covered no-man’s land into a 2.5-acre park-like urban retreat for the facility’s 3,000 employees, with benches, native grasses and trees, and a view of the skyline that includes the Empire State Building.

Begun as a maintenance initiative, AECOM was asked to assess the required scope to determine if the replacement of the entire roof was necessary, or if a partial replacement would suffice. Based on an extensive background and knowledge of the Morgan facility, particularly the roof structural loading capacity, the AECOM team proposed the “green roof” concept to the USPS. The Postal Service had already been implementing a broader environmental initiative, which includes hybrid vehicles, recycling efforts and architecture initiatives, and the agency concluded that the proposed Morgan green roof made strong economic sense.

First built in 1933 and designated an historical landmark in 1986, the 2,200,000-square-foot facility is one of the largest mail processing and distribution centers in the country. The roof structure was originally designed to serve as an extra mail-processing floor, able to support 200 pounds per square foot, and thus was easily able to support the added weight of a green roof.

Green roofs are noted for their ability to reduce a building’s energy load. The Morgan green roof will help the USPS meet its target of reducing the facility’s energy use 30 percent by 2015. During the summer months, contaminants in stormwater runoff emptying into city sewers will be reduced by 75 percent, and reduced by 35 percent during the winter. With AECOM, the Postal Service also is pursuing LEED certification for the project.

The project is also financially sound: with a life expectancy of 40 to 50 years, a green roof will last approximately twice as long as a conventional roof.