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- Written by: James Cropsey
There's a lot of confusion in the development industry about the added cost and expense of building a pier over water or on filled land. As development and developers interest begins to focus again on major metropolitan areas, few sites remain in premium locations that use standard construction techniques. In order to secure a particular market, developers will have to think outside the box and consider sites that had been passed over by previous rounds of development.
One of these types of sites consists of the air rights situation. Whether this type of site is built entirely over a transportation use, such as a rail line in the case of the proposed Trump project in upper Manhattan or a highway in the case of Boston's anticipated Columbus Center, or on filled land in the case of Battery Park City in lower Manhattan, all these types of projects share a common construction thread. The construction must take place using piles and a deck over piles. This article will take a close look at this technique and explore some cost differentials in terms everyone will understand and then examine a few projects, both past and present, that use this technique.