Charles Gans

Love this from @jessicaramosqns, on the IBX: "Jackson Heights to Bay Ridge. Great food. The food line, it is going to be a delicious, the most delicious train line."

New York City is the greatest city on the planet because we’ve always been and must always be the type of place where regardless of where your life story began, you have a home here, you can make a difference here, you matter here. #CityofYes

This made my weekend :) Let’s go!!!

@markasaurus @MarketUrbanism @iononrecourse Second both of these comments. This is crazy. It checks all boxes - highly inefficient and highly combustible!

Drywall bums me out - I’ve been tempted to try just tearing it off to get a look like the Roman and Williams duo did on their personal home

@Snowball_Dev @aussieflya @MarketUrbanism Don’t sleep on NYC’s P3 prowess! Lol

@aussieflya @MarketUrbanism Appreciate the like @charles_gans - for those not in the know, Charlie co-led RETS at NYCEDC with Jeff Nelson for ~5 years after a guy name Seth Pinsky. All heavy hitters that know a thing or two about public JVs at the institutional level.

If you apply the conditions in the second bullet point, there won’t be any funds for the third. The ambitions of “broad community engagement and public outreach,” “affordable housing units,” etc. multiplied by NYC’s cost disease will outstrip the profit potential many times over

@moseskagan When I was a CM, I had developers insist on cheaper, less qualified subs and then tell me they’ll buy me some aspirin to make for the difference. This attitude was based on a misunderstanding of the allocation of risk. My problems very often became their problems too.

Even after having renovated ~100 buildings with the same group of contractors in the years prior to Covid, we made this mistake… …and paid dearly for it, in the form of change orders, delays & shoddy workmanship which we have had to spend $$ to fix. (Recommend following my friend @mwmoedinger)

i need more people to see how ridiculous this is

@bobbyfijan Is that a revolving door? :)

If you are easily triggered by floorplan details ... look away

@MTA A smart, inexpensive way to protect the public. Way to go, MTA!

You may notice something new at the 191 St station: This weekend, we installed platform railings at the station as part of a pilot program. Your safety is our highest priority, and we’re committed to reducing track intrusions and increasing safety. Thanks for riding with us.

@SethBorman @MarketUrbanism Do you know the name is the start up? I’d like to upgrade to an induction stove but I’m working with 120/208v

@MarketUrbanism There's a startup working on an induction stove that uses 110v from the wall and a battery to store power. It's a good idea. The cost of running new electrical is going to be extreme. My electrician charges 2x what my physician does.

I’m always skeptical of hacks like this, but curious to see how this one turns out. Ideally it seems like we would have a public housing authority that can do electrical upgrades at a reasonable price, instead of sidestepping the construction management/labor issue

I could not be more thrilled about @LeilaBozorg's return to city government. She's a class act whose skills are surpassed only by the depth of her commitment to ensuring all New Yorkers have access to a safe, stable and affordable home. nyc.gov/office-of-the-…

@mwmoedinger It gets tricky when a good CM, who has run a good project, has burned through his GCs. What’s the reasonable thing to do? It can be a tough call.

@charles_gans THIS!! So key.

The end of a construction project is where the wheels can really come off, and money and time gets seriously wasted. Everyone is tired and ready to be done, which can lead to lax oversight. What can be done to make sure that last 2% of the project doesn't ruin things? 👇👇 - keep going with weekly onsite OAC meetings. It's tempting to cancel these, bc "there's just not that much to talk about." But without the regular pressure of the meeting, and regular walkthrus, stuff starts to get missed and deadlines start to slide. - owners: DO NOT pay in full until the project is actually complete. Your contract should define what "complete" is (substantially complete, punchlist, CO, move in, etc are all important milestones at the end but they're not the same thing). - don't neglect the punchlist. The architect should create it, but owners, you need to be part of that process as well. Once you sign off on a punchlist, it's very hard to go back and add stuff later. - don't neglect good CA processes. Everyone is sick of project paperwork - RFIs, submittals, ASIs, ASKs, etc etc - but a year from now you will be verrrry glad you have a good project record, especially of the chaotic last days of a project. Stick to it. - no matter your role, acknowledge and understand that the team is both tired and giddy - everyone loves finishing a project, but it's likely been a slog. - and some specific advice: Owners, don't scream at your GC/architect bc something small was missed. Just let them know; they're juggling a lot of little stuff. GCs, don't check out and neglect the job just bc it's in the "piddly stuff" stage that your guys don't enjoy. And architects, don't make dumb last minute suggestions or dawdle with project admin stuff. - no matter your role, find quiet times to walk the site alone. Stuff will jump out at you that you don't see when you're in a big meeting running around the site. - on bigger jobs, make sure the team is assembling an O+M manual (operations and maintenance) so the owner has specs, manufacturer, etc of everything in the bldg. On smaller/resi jobs, the GC should collect all manuals for appliances, etc, and make sure the owner gets them. - take photos! You likely won't get pro ones done for a while, so snap a few that can be used on your website/social as placeholders for now. - say thank you, a lot. What else should we keep in mind as we're wrapping up a project, to make sure we're coming in strong over the finish line?

@BKBPReynoso 4th Avenue and Carroll St has flooded atleast 3 times in the last ten years. We can atleast try to limit the damage in the short term by trying to make more people aware.

@BKBPReynoso New residents and people from other neighborhoods don’t know if they’re parking or living in low areas. Long term we must make the investments in infrastructure to address this. In the short term, a couple signs on parking polls could save people from large financial losses.

My office is reporting areas of flooding to the offices of the Governor and Mayor. We are currently aware of flooding at the locations listed below. If you are aware of other locations with severe flooding, please DM us:

“Thanks everyone for comments on the draft, here it is revised with all your edits.”

@antonia_mdprjct Agreed!

Nothing wrong w/ this! Hopefully you have other relationships you can call on should your lawyer quit their firm, retire, etc. Tons of value from having long-standing relationships, no doubt. Just have more than one person who does every job for you. Sometimes a new perspective can also be valuable.

One of the biggest mistakes I see seasoned developers make is hiring the same team across all projects w/o ever going through a bidding process. While there is value in finding ‘your people’, there are two major disadvantages to this approach.

@antonia_mdprjct It removes a lot of friction / inefficiency from the process. Everything in moderation I suppose.

@antonia_mdprjct So tempting with legal to keep reusing over and over. Having a lawyer that has worked for you before - who knows what you care about and don’t care about - what points are nonnegotiable and which points you’re willing to trade only at very end.