Javits Convention Center Transformer Building March Construction Update

Epstein is serving as the design architect and structural engineer for the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center Transformer Building.

As part of the larger effort to expand the Javits Center, the Transformer Building will provide the essential electrical infrastructure to power the six city blocks that comprise the Javits campus on the west side of Manhattan. The complexities of constructing this building do not end with the miles of pipe and wire coursing through its interior. There has been careful coordination with the team building the adjacent Expansion and Truck Marshalling buildings into which the Transformer Building will become fully integrated, and Epstein has been busy administering construction that hovers directly above existing electrical equipment that continues to provide power to one of the busiest convention center in the nation.

Right now the Transformer Building at the Javits Center is at an incredibly exciting moment, as the maze of electrical equipment inside is about to be energized for the first time, explains Paul Sanderson, AIA, Epstein's Associate Vice President. Little by little, as equipment is brought online in the Transformer Building, the existing equipment below will be decommissioned until the Javits is receiving all of its power from the new facility. As soon as the old equipment can be removed, work can begin on the first floor of the building which houses the fuel supply for the generator plant that has already been installed above.

The building itself will consist of a structural steel frame with two supported levels and the floors will be concrete slab on metal deck supported by steel beams with composite studs. The foundation system consists of six straight shaft caissons that were drilled into the underlying bedrock to span over the Lincoln Tunnel while avoiding underground utilities and the equipment of the existing transformer yard, all of which remain in operation throughout construction.

The three-story 34,000-square-foot facility will house transformers, back-up generators, switchgear, fuel storage, fire pumps and emergency generators required to power and provide fire protection to the Javits Center upon completion in 2020.