Dear Neighbors, Friends Seminary extends a sincere thank you to everyone who attended the school's community construction meeting last week, as well as to those who could not attend but wrote or called the school in connection with our project. Since construction began, the school has taken steps to minimize disruption to our neighbors to greatest possible extent, and these efforts will certainly continue as the project moves forward.
In addition to the information Friends shared last week around construction and noise mitigations (presentation can accessed here), as well as feedback we received from our neighbors, we'd like to report back on several follow-up actions.
Regarding deliveries and pick-ups at the 15th Street construction staging area, as reported, Friends has instructed its food service vendor to discontinue using 15th Street for morning food drop-off, and rather to park on Rutherford Place for unloading. Our food service vendor has begun to implement this new policy with its drivers, and early indications are that this change is resulting in less noise disruption in the morning. As well, our construction manager, Tishman, has been vigilant in communicating to its subcontractors that, if they arrive early for work, they are no longer permitted to traverse 15th Street and park in front of the school. Tishman has also begun to monitor the 15th Street construction zone prior to 7 a.m. to ensure compliance with this directive, and permanent signage will soon be installed in the construction zone which states that no construction vehicle parking is permitted before 7 a.m. Regarding waste removal, we have instructed our waste services vendor to modify its pick-up times to arrive earlier in the evening for garbage removal, and to change recycling pick-up to after 7 a.m. We are working hard to enforce these new delivery and arrival times, and have demanded that our vendors and subcontractors adhere to the new protocols.
Since last week's meeting, Tishman has also taken the step of pulling the 15th Street construction barricades "in" to within five feet of the curb at the end of each work day. This was a suggestion made by neighbors at the meeting as a way to facilitate smoother vehicular mobility between 2nd and 3rd Avenues in front of the construction zone.
In response to another suggestion from neighbors at last week's meeting, the school will soon be seeking to schedule conversations and/or meetings with neighboring building superintendents, to discuss construction logistics and to solicit any further input around steps that the school might take to respond to adjacent building concerns. We've been in touch with residents from a few buildings already who are interested in members of the school's construction team meeting with their buildings' superintendents, and if you would like for the school to schedule a meeting with your building super, simply respond to this email, and we will be in touch with you shortly.
Finally, we're pleased to report that the NYC Department of Environmental Protection conducted a site visit and inspection last week, and found that the project was adhering to acceptable standards of the NYC Noise and Air Code. Friends is committed to mitigating quality of life impacts resulting from our academic expansion project, and we appreciate the feedback the school has and continues to receive from our neighbors. Please don't hesitate to be in touch with any questions.
Respectfully,
Friends Seminary projects@friendsseminary.org 646.979.5225 (dedicated project information line)