The cost of those lab conversions in NYC are pretty eye watering but the cost of the construction isn’t the biggest driver of organization looking at new buildings. It’s all these new energy laws for New York. Labs require a ton of energy to run for gases, fume hoods, air exchanges, computing etc.. The building energy use ratings for converted labs are hanging heavy on these organizations. It’s all happening pretty fast with Local Law 97. Even if you built a new building that opened last year, if you have natural gas or a cogen unit your outdated.

Not to mention the compromises that New York labs make when converting old spaces. It’s not the same as most labs in the country. You have serious coordination issues with all the services and you pretty much reduce the average space design of a lab by 30% compared to the global benchmark. So you end up building a $2-4k/sqft lab with 30% less space than your experts told you it should be. Or you address the renewable energy issues, build the right floor heights, design the building for labs with have a proper utility core and make the spaces 20% smaller than recommended, all while building for around $1800/sqft when you include all the nonlab spaces of a new building.

Its a complex issue that a lot of folks are trying to address. So while lab conversions are thing, everyone complains about them, they are expensive, and they cost even more to run because of the cities energy conservation requirements.

Manhattan exists and is able to support all the buildings in such close proximity because of the bedrock known as Manhattan schist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan#Bedrock

There are several places where the schist rises above the ground, or outcroppings so you can see what lies beneath. New York is essentially built on a rocky mountain.

They most definitely had a geotechnical analysis. You need one. And the report provides details to inform the construction. The issue that occurred here is common and more complicated than “the owner cheaped out”. The structural engineer is ultimately responsible for figuring out the solution, and the contractor is responsible for means and methods. The blame will lie somewhere between the accuracy of the geotechnical report, the design by the structural engineer and the work performed by the support of excavation contractor. In the end everyone loses. Because regardless of who is “wrong” there are enough checks and balances that blame is hardly ever one sided, and nobody can afford to take the kind of punch a delay like this delivers.

TIL it takes 39 people to replace a subway track.

If i see a Maine plate slow rolling the left lane, I just assume they are a retiree from Massachusetts.