The city is moving closer to getting emergency housing with the selection of a three-story, three-unit prototype — complete with balconies — that will soon be erected next to the Office of Emergency Management in Brooklyn.
The prototype includes two, 822 square-foot three-bedroom units on the upper two floors, and one 480 square-foot one-bedroom handicapped accessible apartment on the ground floor — still far larger than the city’s 250-to-370 square-foot permanent Micro Units.
We’ve learned the mini-complex — designed by Garrison Architects of Brooklyn for American Manufactured Structures and Services of Vienna, Va. — was selected this month for the $1,135,147 contract by the US Army Corps of Engineers.
Three companies responded to the RFP issued earlier this year, said Chris Gardner, a spokesman for the Corps. “It was determined to be the best value to the government considering all the technical factors and the price,” Gardner said of the AMSS proposal.
As we previously reported, in 2008 the city held an architectural contest for emergency housing designs titled, “What if NYC,” but while winners received a stipend, nothing was built or ready to roll four years later when Superstorm Sandy hit.
Instead, more detailed requirements had to be hashed out for this RFP so it would conform to local codes.
Alan Rand of AMSS says construction will likely commence soon, with opening day in early fall. “We have property management responsibilities,” said Rand, whose company often works with the government and military on other modular projects. “This will provide feedback to all the parties to ensure that the end solution is one that the government will use.”
These 12-foot wide modular units are not containers, which are 8 feet wide, stressed Jim Garrison, principal of Garrison Architects. The 40-foot long units are shipped entirely pre-assembled so all the local contractor has to do is clip them together and hook up the utilities.
Garrison said contractors will have to be given detailed directions, but, just like putting together a bike on Christmas Eve, “if you are putting together the second one, it goes faster.”
Eventually, this design will be used for high-density, four-story urban housing, Garrison said. “Even though this is a stand-alone, it is designed to operate as a row house and be deployed on a city block so it has a garden in back and parking in front and makes a secure perimeter to create an urban street.”
These units also include a balcony, which provides more livable space, controls solar-heat gain and allows for privacy and larger windows, Garrison said.
As part of the environmentally friendly design, special rooftop photovoltaics have variant refrigerant-flow heat pumps that “are slick” and also make them 30 percent more efficient as they balance inside temperatures.
It is likely that a series of people, from OEM personnel to students, academics and architects, will take turns living in the apartments to provide feedback in order to tweak them for future city emergency deployment.
“They jokingly threatened to have us live there,” said Garrison, who quipped it would be “divine justice,” but agreed his staff could learn a few things if they did so.
The units were designed to comply with all city codes, with input from the Dept. of Buildings, Office of Emergency Management and Citywide Administrative Services, which will be meeting with the AMSS and Garrison and project engineers, Anastos Engineering Associates, also from Brooklyn.
“We will build a prototype and test it for a year or so and come up with a first-rate specification, [then] publish it to the industry and they will be there when we need housing,” OEM Commissioner Joe Bruno told us last fall. “This is a pretty aggressive program, but it has taken us a long time to get it going.”
Included is minimal furniture, including a desk, dining table, chairs and beds.
The appliances include an electric stove and microwave, and once power is restored after an emergency, city slickers will surely need lots of outlets to repower their endless supply of devices.
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Diptyque, a Paris-based perfumer, is opening in Nolita in 400 square feet at 242 Mott St. The perfumer, whose scented candles can sell for $275 a pop, joins Café Gitane and Polo RRL in the small building on the corner of Prince St.
Nick Cowan and Joel Isaacs, of Isaacs and Co., represented the tenant in its third city location. The company already makes the city smell sweeter along Bleecker St. and on Madison Ave.
Edmond Li and Brett Nidel, of Veracity Real Estate Management, represented the ownership, which had an asking rent of $12,500 per month, or $375 a square foot.