The Long Road to Recovery for a Brooklyn Co-op
You name it, the 191-unit co-op at 2650 Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn had to do it: replace individual electrical meters; repair the boiler; install a new walkway leading to the building; replace all the glass in the front of the lobby and in the main and two-side entrance lobby doors; replace flooring and walls; and redo the sheetrock.
Although it was just about three years ago, this co-op — like many others — is still licking its wounds following the October 2012 arrival of Hurricane Sandy in New York. The building stands about a mile and a half from the ocean, but the property still wound up with close to seven feet of water in its lobby.
"Everything was flooded completely, a hundred percent," says Zinovy Shekhtman, the president of the seven-member board. "All the utility rooms are located off the main lobby," adds Theresa Fillisetti, a manager with FirstService Residential who handles the building. Garage, boiler, and electrical rooms were all "under water. They lost everything in the lobby, the walls, the floor, and the furnishings — whatever was there."
The funding for much of the subsequent repair and upgrading work came from the "Build It Back" program, run by the Department of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD). "The city has paid for all the expenses of putting the building back in shape up until this point [in early September]," explains Fillisetti. "It didn't cost [the co-op] a penny. It provides funding with a non-interest-bearing loan," which is more like a grant since it doesn't have to be repaid "as long as we don't go out and redo our mortgage."
HPD has been involved from the start. After taking bids from 12 contractors suggested by the city, the co-op settled on Shamas Construction, which coordinated the efforts of different subcontractors who performed the boiler and electrical work.
The basic repairs to get the building up and running started soon after Sandy struck; more long-term replacements and upgrades are still going on. "Sometimes we chose to upgrade materials, over and beyond whatever HPD had budgeted for," says Shekhtman.
The board would meet every two weeks with HPD and the contractor. In addition, HPD reviewed the progress of the job at least once a week. Two board members were appointed as liaisons: Shekhtman and Yoshi Funatani.
There are a number of unresolved financial issues caused by what Shekhtman calls "unforeseeable circumstances. You might think that you know what is behind a wall or under the floor," he notes, "but you don't know when there is some additional job that needs to be done."
For instance, Con Edison's electrical cables to the property needed to be replaced. The contractor planned to pull them out and insert new cables. "The problem is they were cemented in place 60 years ago," Shekhtman says, "and it is impossible to take this out." Another route had to be found; and the board, the contractor and HPD discussed various solutions, including digging a new pathway underground. But as of early September, the new work, its cost, and who would pay for its anticipated $180,000 price tag were still unresolved issues.
"This is an additional job that was not anticipated," Shekhtman says. "The project is over budget already, and somebody has to pay for it. I don't know how it will be resolved. The problem is that there is no mechanism in HPD to review the initial scope after part of the work is already done so it can take into consideration any unanticipated problems. This electrical cables problem is just one example."
The difficulty is that, when the unexpected occurs, the contractor and the board need to submit change orders to HPD. The change orders so far have added up to thousands of dollars above the proposed cost of the project, which was valued at $758,000. The initial cost of the project (along with some of the change orders) has been covered by the funds awarded by HPD.
It has been a long ride, and Shekhtman, for one, is trying to be patient. "Let's put it this way," he says. "I don't know yet the result of [the electrical cables problem]. Somebody has to basically pay for this, and maybe a contractor will agree to a lesser amount. Maybe HPD will be a little more generous. I don't know. We're negotiating right now."