http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...shatter-record
Nonunion West 57th St. spire aims to shatter record
A 1,400-foot tower on West 57th could signal the end of the labor's monopoly.
BY DANIEL GEIGER
JANUARY 14, 2015
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Standing 1,400 feet tall and only 60 feet wide, the hyperpricey condo spire rising at 111 W. 57th St. will make an indelible mark on New York, not just for its outlandish dimensions, but also because of how it was built—if it actually is.
The developers believe they can build the 80-story tower without union construction labor, which for decades has held a lock on erecting the very tallest skyscrapers. The unprecedented effort is already underway. In September, an in-house crew of construction managers and nonunion subcontractors began pouring the property's elaborate foundation. By the summer, the developers are planning to begin raising the tower's reinforced cast concrete frame with more nonunion personnel.
If the developers—a partnership between Michael Stern's JDS Development Group and Kevin Maloney—succeed with their plan, the property would rank, by a large margin, as the tallest and most complex ever built in the city without union labor. In the process, it could throw open the door for nonunion construction firms, which typically undercut their rivals' costs by as much as 20%, to compete for the most-sophisticated jobs.
"If they built that tower nonunion, it would be unprecedented," said Gary Barnett, the developer who started the ultra-tall building boom with luxury condo tower One57. "I think if they built it successfully, more developers doing projects of that size would have to take a look at going nonunion."
Construction union leaders insist that day will never come. They note that of the seven super-tall, pencil-thin residential buildings underway in Manhattan, only 111 W. 57th St. uses nonunion crews. And in an effort to keep it that way and perhaps force Messrs. Stern and Maloney to change their minds, unions have sporadically picketed the site for weeks and plan to continue to do so.
"If Mike Stern wants to run his mouth, that's fine, but I don't know how it's going to get built," said Gary LaBarbera, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council, an organization that represents 100,000 unionized construction workers in the city. "This is a needle in the haystack—an experiment more than anything else."
Maybe so, but Messrs. Stern and Maloney have done it before. In fact, they have done so repeatedly on a smaller but ever-increasing scale. In 2008, they purchased 212 W. 18th St. in Chelsea and converted the bulk of what was a Verizon telephone switching facility into a 24-story luxury condo called Walker Tower without the services of a single member of organized labor. That project became one of the most talked-about residential properties of the recent condo boom.
$51M vindication
In a stunning demonstration of just how far nonunion firms have come, last year one of the Walker Tower's penthouses sold for nearly $51 million. The price set a record for the area, and in doing so proved that nonunion workers can deliver apartments with a fit and finish capable of meeting the expectations of even the wealthiest and most discerning condo buyers from around the world.
Now, in addition to the projected $1 billion tower at 111 W. 57th St., Mr. Stern is building two large residential buildings, totaling 800 rental units, with nonunion labor on a blocklong development site between East 35th and East 36th streets next to the FDR Drive.
"JDS Development Group's mission is to see all of its projects through, from acquisition to completion, with utmost precision, and our affiliated JDS Construction division allows us to help control the construction process and guarantee the execution of our vision down to every detail," said Mr. Stern in a written response to questions.
While Mr. Stern easily ranks as New York's highest-profile nonunion developer, he has a growing amount of company. Flintlock Construction, a nonunion firm, for instance, has been at the vanguard of a group of contractors tackling increasingly complex projects. The company in recent years has built several properties more than 30 stories tall, a height that was once the purview of only highly skilled union workers.
"The job at 111 W. 57th St. is probably the most significant symbol to date that this industry needs to adjust its costs or risk the downward trend of losing more of the market," said Louis Coletti, president of the Building Trades Employers Association, a group that represents contractors that employ union construction workers.
Messrs. Coletti and LaBarbera agree, however, that nonunion job sites are statistically more dangerous because nonunion contractors don't provide the same training and supervision as the unions do. Mr. Coletti points to a recent BTEA study that found that 65% of stop-work orders issued by the city's Buildings Department and 75% of recorded fatalities on construction jobs nationally came on nonunion projects.
Buttressed by such concerns, Mr. LaBarbera's organization last year banded together with powerful labor unions 32BJ, the Hotel Trades Council and SEIU, which represents building workers, to roll out a publicity campaign against Mr. Stern. The coalition pointed out that Park Side Construction—one of the subcontractors working on the foundation at 111 W. 57th St.—had a worker killed by a falling concrete slab on a hotel project on West 37th Street last September. That job is being built by another developer.
"There are responsible and irresponsible developers, and we believe that Michael Stern is irresponsible," Mr. LaBarbera said.
While Mr. Stern insists that the safety record on his projects compares favorably with those done by developers using union workers, he may end up using a blend of nonunion and union workers for different components of the job.
In that scenario, some of the trickiest elements of building such a tall tower—like crane operation—could go union, while less-skilled work, such as painting and plumbing, could be done nonunion. That blend would be tricky because organized labor doesn't sanction so-called open-shop jobs, in which developers can pick and choose which portions will be done union.
Union subcontractors who work on those jobs essentially cast off their affiliation in order to do the work, effectively working nonunion by agreeing to the same wages and job rules as a nonunion contractor would.
"It used to be that union workers would put their tools down and walk off a job site if they saw nonunion workers there," Mr. Coletti said. "But that changed during the recession, when it became every man for himself."
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