Beauty, they say, is more than skin deep. At 33 Fifth Avenue, a luxury co-op in Greenwich Village, the board had to go more than skin deep to restore the beauty of their building and make it watertight.
Time had taken its toll on the 16-story, 60-unit building, built in 1924 and featuring great views and high ceilings. RAND's 7th Cycle Local Law 11/98 Report called for extensive brick replacement, terra cotta and limestone repairs, and repointing. Wind-driven rain was regularly pounding the building, resulting in heavy water damage and persistent leaks on the upper floors, especially on the east-facing facade, which proved particularly porous.
To stop the leaks, RAND, which has worked at the property for more than 20 years, designed and specified "re-skinning" a significant portion of the building. Re-skinning, a labor-intensive and time-consuming procedure, typically involves removing the surface brick, adding a layer of mortar, applying a waterproofing membrane, then adding a new layer of brick. Because of the widespread deterioration over the years, the entire top half of the building, from the parapets down to the eighth floor, needed to be re-skinned.
To stop persistent leaks and repair extensive water damage, the top half of 33 Fifth Avenue was re-skinned.
The property is located in the Greenwich Village Historic District, so the entire scope and every minor field detail change required approval from the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission. During the course of construction, we also discovered rusted structural steel that needed to be replaced, adding to the timeline. Even so, the repair program, which began in June 2012 and was completed in February with approximately six months of actual site work, finished in budget at approximately $400,000. (For more on the project, see this article in Habitat magazine.)
The project was a major challenge, but now that it has been completed, the formerly leak-plagued building can once again keep residents dry in the comfort of its new skin.
