Six Buildings, One Facade Crisis, and a Plan That Worked

A five-year, nearly $10 million facade restoration across six Manhattan high-rises sounds like a board's worst nightmare, but careful planning turned it into a success story. Michael Stripunsky, associate principal at SUPERSTRUCTURES, unpacks the project's toughest challenges: coordinating repairs across 700-plus units without disrupting residents or the building's commercial tenants, deciding which facades to prioritize first, and finding a way to shrink the sidewalk shed's footprint long before the project was finished. He also details a documentation method that kept the contractor accountable at every stage of the concrete repair process, a small shift that made an outsized difference in efficiency. For boards bracing for their own facade project, Stripunsky offers insight into what actually keeps timelines and budgets under control, and what separates a project that runs smoothly from one that spirals. Habitat's Emily Myers conducts the interview. 

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