Drip, Drip, Drip…

The Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) plans to spend $600,000 to fix a leak in the roof of the Asphalt Green community center on North End Avenue. “From the outset there were some problems with leakage into the facility,” explained Gwen Dawson, the BPCA’s vice president for real property at the Authority’s October 29 board meeting, “which were reported to Milstein,” the developer who constructed the community center, and the two luxury residential towers perched above it. She continued that these problems, “persisted after the site was turned over to Asphalt Green and opened in 2013. Those problems persist today.”

Five years ago, the BPCA retained an engineering firm, to investigate the causes of the water infiltration. The Authority’s consultant, “indicated that there was culpability on the part of the contractor for Milstein,” Ms. Dawson said. “We currently have an agreement with Milstein to allow the Authority to have access to the site to change out the waterproofing system on the terrace — to perform repairs necessary to address the leakage problems, which at this point includes the removal of the terrace above the facility, re-waterproofing the terrace, and installation of a new terrace surface with planters and seating.”

While the terrace above the community center (overlooking the ball fields) is being excavated, the Authority plans a further examination of the exact causes of the water leak, “and subsequent negotiations with Milstein as to an ultimate allocation of financial responsibility for the repair,” Ms. Dawson said.

“From the outset there were some problems with leakage into the facility, ” explained Gwen Dawson the BPCA’s vice president for real property.

In the meantime, the BPCA has hired LiRo Group, a firm that provides construction management, engineering, environmental, and architectural services, to oversee the project. LiRo’s fee will be $601,304, according to Ms. Dawson. In this context, it is worth noting that the expense will cover only construction management. The actual work of demolishing the terrace, replacing the waterproofing, and then reconstructing the original deck and balcony will be assigned to another firm, and will likely cost several times LiRo’s fee. This will be a separate, additional expense.

A rule of thumb within the building industry is that construction management fees generally fall into between seven and 15 percent of the overall budget of the project that a firm is hired to oversee. This metric would yield a total projected cost somewhere between $4 million and $8.5 million for fixing the leak in Asphalt Green’s roof. Both this figure and LiRo’s fee would also have to be added to the original fee, of slightly more than $50,000, that was paid to the consulting engineer hired in 2013 to investigate the leak.

	Martha Gallo

BPCA board member Martha Gallo then questioned, “why this isn’t Milstein’s responsibility? I just don’t understand why we’re still in the middle of this.”

Ms. Dawson replied, “we certainly think that there is responsibility on the part of Milstein. And that’s something that we’re leaving open for further discussion. We will have more information once we have finished this. We also have a tenant that we have to — we have facilities operations that we need to be concerned about as well.”

Authority board member Donald Capoccia queried, “who’s paying our design fees at this point on this, our engineering fees?”

Ms. Dawson replied that the BPCA will be absorbing this expense. Mr. Capoccia seemed surprised at this, and asked again, “we are?”

“Yes,” Ms. Dawson replied.

The Authority’s general counsel, Abby Goldenberg, interjected, “I’m being careful about my words, because I think that someday down the road there’s a possibility of litigation here, so I don’t want to say too much that would be attorney-client privilege in public session. But we believe that Milstein does bear — should bear — a financial burden here.”

“We’ve been very clear with them as to that,” she continued. “In the meantime, we wanted this work to get done. So we spent a great deal of effort trying to negotiate with them a reservation of rights and tolling agreements, so that we are not at all prejudiced by doing this work, with the ability to go back to them, particularly once we have all the forensic information that Gwen’s team is going to gather, to go back to them and assert our rights with regard to repayment for this work.”

Gwen Dawson

BPCA chairman George Tsunis then asked, “has anyone gone inside and see if water has seeped through? Water begets mold. The responsible thing is, let’s fix it, being that public health is at issue here, so let’s fix it, and we’ll sort it out with Milstein,” Mr Tsunis decided.

Ms. Goldenberg advised, “we do not have any evidence of mold at this point.”

Mr. Tsunis continued, “I would feel much better personally if we brought in a company that tested it. I’m hoping it’s not. But I’ve seen any time there is water damage and it seeps through, there is certainly a possibility. You’re not going to know about it until you get behind the wall. If it’s behind wallpaper or if it’s behind something, it might exist.”

Mr. Tsunis then called for a vote on approving the contract for LiRo. All of the BPCA’s board members voted in supporting of authorizing the contract, with the exception of Ms. Gallo, who abstained.

“I think we paid $58 million for a community center that was delivered with a defective wall,” she said. “And I think we’ve known that for a long time. And we’ve let it go for a very long time. $58 million was a lot to spend on that community center.”

A BPCA spokesman emphasized that the core and shell of the community center was delivered by Milstein, and that discussions about appropriate financial responsibility for the leak remediation project continue.

Once the costs outlined above are added to the figure cited by Ms. Gallo, however, the total allocation of public money to support the Asphalt Green community center may approach $70 million.