Sleepy Hollow Feels 'Deep Thumps'

Update, Wednesday, 3:20 p.m.: Are you getting sick of this yet? Apparently the workers aren't.

A supervisor from developer National RE/Sources stopped by to check out the preconstruction compacting Densification, Inc. is doing this week and next to make way for River's Edge. He said he asked the workers if they got tired of hoisting this giant weight up and dropping it again and again, all day, for days. The worker said he could do this forever. 

Perhaps neighbors feel differently. Is this bothering you?

Village Administrator Anthony Giaccio said he's received some calls asking what's going on. One Patch commenter said she called the police. Giaccio noted that this was also standard procedure for nearby Ichabod's Landing before it went up some years back. He personally thought it was less dramactic than he expected, describing it on his visit to the waterfront as "I just heard and felt a deep thump."

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Monday: "Get ready," said Village Administrator Anthony Giaccio of the work that has begun today on the dirt acreage that used to be Castle Oil. Neighbors "probably will feel it," he said as a crew from Densification, Inc. begin to compact that soil by dropping a weight from a tall crane repeatedly for about two weeks.  

The River's Edge development said they were required to build three feet higher by their insurance company following new FEMA flood zone maps, which the Village balked at as a bit too much too bear. 

The National RE/Sources developer (same as the adjacent Hudson Harbor project in Tarrytown) revisited their plans and apparently shaved as much off each floor as they could, Giaccio said, bringing down the elevation increase to 18 inches. 

This was sufficient enough for village officials. "They made the argument that they took off as much of the design off each level as possible; by cutting it down to 18 inches they definitely made an effort," he said.

For those who have wondered here in the Patch comments how the building "creeped" up so high, Giaccio said this followed about five years of many public meetings and input. At this point, "it's pretty much a done deal," he said. Citizens had "plenty of opportunties to speak and they did." He also noted that the original zoning for this site allows for about five feet more height they they are actually building. 

The next frontier after this, when and if the GM site redevelopment comes to be, is the moving of the DPW headquarters across from River's Edge to the back of the GM lot. Then some similar development could come to the present DPW site as well. The allowable height here is zoned even higher, Giaccio said, but people "will 100 percent have a say in that."

Are you feeling and hearing the compacting work from where you are? Weigh in below.

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