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.
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.
AECOM, as part of a joint venture, is working with the NYC Department of Environmental Protection to provide Construction Management Services for New York City’s first water underground treatment plant. This 290 million-gallon-per-day plant is being constructed completely underground beneath Van Cortlandt Park, in the Bronx. When in operation, this plant will have the ability to treat between 20% and 30% of the daily water usage of NYC. The pre-existing golf course and driving range, under which the plant is being constructed, will be fully restored at the original grades above the roof of the completed facility. This $2.4 billion facility is a critical piece to the City’s Watershed Agreement with the Federal Government. A completed Site Preparation Construction Contract consisted of the drilling, explosive blasting and excavation of 250,000 cubic yards of soil and 950,000 cubic yards of rock to a final depth of 100 feet below surface grade. The completed Tunnel Construction Contract includes an 850 foot tunnel connecting to the New Croton Aqueduct for the raw water feed and two 4,000 foot tunnels from the Water Treatment Plant to the Jerome Avenue Reservoir.
The tunnel work also includes three shafts which are 100 feet deep to provide access for required future maintenance. The Water Treatment Plant Construction Contract consists of a water treatment plant that will contain a raw water pumping station, dissolved air flotation, UV disinfection, offices and facilities, a small process laboratory and a treated water pumping station. To date approximately 260,000 cubic yards of concrete, 60,000,000 pounds of reinforcing bars, 622,000 square feet of duct work, 32,000 feet of water pipe, 1,000 feet of an 84-inch diameter treated water tunnel, 1,300,000 feet of conduit and 8,500,000 feet of wire have been installed.