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GATEWAY CENTER RISES OVER AN OLD NYC DUMP

By Lee Kessler

In the Dr. Seuss classic, If I Ran the Circus, a garbage-strewn lot is transformed (in the mind of young Morris McGurk) into a spectacular circus. In New York City’s Brooklyn borough, a developer has achieved something similar, turning a former garbage dump into a retail development called Gateway Center.

Developed by Related Retail (an affiliate of The Related Cos.) in partnership with Blackacre Capital Management, both based in New York City, Gateway Center is one of the largest suburban-style retail centers to be built in the city. The open-air center comprises 13 buildings that share a 48-acre property with a park.

“Gateway Center gave us an opportunity to build something that would strengthen the neighborhood’s and the city’s economic future,” said Brad Singer, president of HRH Construction Corp., the New York City contractor that Related Retail approached in the summer of 1999 for the $100 million project. “To do that, we had to solve multiple challenges at a site few thought of as viable for a retail plaza.”

The 635,000-square-foot Gateway Center, designed by Atlanta-based Greenberg Farrow Architecture, was an elaborate project. It included a new city street, called Gateway Drive; a newly built interchange on the Belt Parkway at Erskine Street; and a 17-acre public park with a regulation cricket field (many among a local immigrant population play the game). Consequently, because a considerable commitment from city officials was needed, developers feared mountains of red tape. But HRH’s Dan Burton, a soft-spoken and dedicated project manager, methodically advanced his cause.

“We had to face details that rarely emerge in other projects, because few are of the same magnitude,” Burton said. “It’s been decades since a new city street was built in Brooklyn. And I don’t think there has been a new interchange on the Belt Parkway since it was built.”

The city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development originally conceived of the project in the late 1980s (the property belonged to both New York City and New York State). The city contributed $51 million toward the development, which it sees as providing much-needed retail to residents in eastern Brooklyn and southern Queens. The city is also building more than 2,000 housing units nearby.

The parkway defines the center’s southern boundary, running west through Canarsie to Coney Island and east through Starrett City to Kennedy Airport. (Built in 1976, Starrett City is a massive residential compound housing more than 20,000 people in 46 buildings.)

The dump, located just north of the salt marshes of Jamaica Bay and the Gateway National Recreation Center, closed more than 50 years ago and was buried beneath several feet of sand, as was common then. In all, HRH found a layer of 10 to 12 feet of the stuff, which over the years may have helped stabilize the site.

Contractors drove more than 10,000 piles into the ground through 12 feet of sand and mounds of decayed garbage below that. Devices attached to buildings monitor any shifting.

In August 2000 HRH began to prep the site, leveling off the undulating surface with a cut-and-fill operation. Contractors also had to make sure the site could support the weight of the new construction, so they tested critical areas by piling material onto them in a process called “surcharging.”

“We surcharged with 10 or 12 feet of earthen material where the buildings [were to stand], and as much as 30 feet of material where the bridge over the parkway would be located,” Burton said. To be sure that its calculations were correct, HRH left the material in place for six months preceding construction before carting it away.

Another preparatory measure was the creation of a wetland area to control rainwater runoff. With its 13 buildings and 2,900-car parking lot, after all, a considerable portion of the site has been paved over. The center consumed some 50,000 square yards of concrete and about 100,000 square yards of asphalt.

“We built a whole system of canals and swales that channel the runoff into Hendrix Creek, which feeds Jamaica Bay,” Burton said. “The system has both freshwater and saltwater areas that were designed to be environmentally aesthetic with all sorts of indigenous plants that will attract wildlife over the years.”

The buildings, all single-story units built on concrete slabs, had to be secured against shifting. In a massive application, more than 10,000 piles of varying types and lengths were used. In the areas that were to be under the buildings, 60-foot creosote wooden piles were driven by a 30-ton pile driver. The protruding tops of the piles were then cut, leveled and capped. The bridge structures, cantilevered lighting and elevated signage were anchored with 90-foot steel piles, filled with concrete and driven down to bedrock. To ensure that the piles and other stabilizing measures are doing their job, the contractors installed settling and monitoring plates throughout the site to detect any shifting. “If something shifts even a fraction of an inch,” said Burton, “we’ll know it. We’ll monitor the overpass to the Belt Parkway for five years, and we’ll monitor the buildings for three years.”

The last — and most fragrant — issue HRH had to face involved the inevitable by-product of decay: methane gas. Before construction, the methane simply filtered up through the sand and escaped harmlessly into the air. But because it is explosive when concentrated, the gas could not be allowed to pool under the slabs of the buildings. Consequently, a methane ventilation system sits beneath each structure, comprising a network of perforated piping that was laid down before the slab was poured. Any methane that makes it to the bottom of the slab is drawn into the perforated pipe. A pump on the roof draws on the pipe continuously, venting the methane out above the roofline. Burton says, however, that this is a backup feature that will probably not be necessary; the gas will probably escape through the system unaided.

With the prep work completed, construction progressed on schedule, with 300 to 500 workers on-site each day whose total effort reached approximately 375,000 man-hours.

The dedication ceremony was held Oct. 1, as scheduled, with New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in attendance. Retail tenants, all open for business, include Bed Bath & Beyond, BJ’s Wholesale Club, Circuit City, Famous Footwear, The Home Depot, Marshalls, Old Navy, Staples and Target. Babies ‘R’ Us and the Boulder Creek, Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants opened later that month.

Today Gateway Center is bustling with activity, serving shoppers who previously had to travel to Long Island to find these opportunities. It has also helped drive the revival of other properties in the area. Across the street at Starrett City, for instance, there is a $70 million capital improvement plan under way. A spokesperson for the development cited Gateway Center as central to the “tremendous revitalization” going on around it.

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz called Gateway Center “one of the most exciting retail centers in the entire borough” and said “the future of Brooklyn is being written right here in Canarsie.” As Dr. Seuss might say, that’s pretty good for an old dump.

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