Ratner’s modular building: the world’s tallest and a `first’ for Brooklyn
Groundbreaking took place on Tuesday for “B2,” the first of the Atlantic Yards development’s long-awaited residential buildings – but it was like no groundbreaking that most people had ever seen.
In back of a see-through tent where the ceremony took place, visitors didn’t see a conventional construction scene. Rather, they saw what looked like a large container made up of steel beams, with a corrugated plastic roof.
That structure is the first of the hundreds of “modules,” to be assembled at a new facility at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, that will be transported to the site between Flatbush Avenue, Vanderbilt and Fourth avenues and Dean and Pacific streets and then be put into place. (The foundation, of course, will be built in the usual way.)
As this paper has already reported, the building, to be constructed by the giant construction firm Skanska USA, will be the tallest modular building in the world, at 32 stories. Forest City Ratner, the developer, and Skanska have formed a new company, FC + Skanska Modular.