“Meridian Build inherited a project that was 14 weeks behind, with our original GC walked off site and a half-poured podium deck nobody wanted to claim. They ran a 30-day audit, rewrote the schedule from the bottom up, and brought the building in on the original handover date — $1.8m under our GMP. Eleven years and four projects later, they're still our default choice.”
The Avery — Mixed-Use, Brooklyn
A 320,000 sq ft mixed-use scheme combining 184 residential units, 28,000 sq ft of street-level retail, and a public courtyard tying two formerly disconnected blocks together. Delivered May 2025.
The brief
A development that had to feel like the neighbourhood, not impose on it
The client — a Brooklyn-based developer with three previous projects in the borough — came to us with a permitted scheme and a problem. The original GC had walked at week 14 over a structural-steel cost dispute, and the design team's drawings still had open coordination flags around the podium-deck transfer.
We took on the project as design-build, picked up the design coordination through our in-house engineering team, and re-tendered the steel package within six weeks. The client's original delivery date held — but only because we wrote the schedule from the bottom up rather than inheriting the previous team's plan.
The Avery, in pictures
Site progress, hand-over photos, and the moments in between — captured by our project photographer over 22 months on site.
Challenges
A site with no margin for error
The site sat between two occupied buildings with party walls dating to 1908. Foundation work required underpinning a six-storey neighbour while keeping its tenants in occupation. Two of those tenants ran ground-floor businesses where vibration would have stopped trade.
We worked with a vibration-monitoring specialist to install real-time sensors before any pile work started, set thresholds 40% below code minimum, and built the schedule around windows when the affected businesses were closed. Zero claims, zero downtime for the neighbours, zero programme slippage.
Approach
Self-perform concrete, modular MEP
We self-performed the structural concrete — slab on grade through level 14 — using a single tower crane and a 28-day pour cycle that gave the steel and facade trades predictable hand-offs. The MEP risers were pre-fabricated off-site in 12-foot modules, lifted into place during the night-shift window, and connected with quick-disconnect fittings. That alone saved 47 site days.
The podium-deck transfer — the hand-off point that derailed the previous team — was redesigned as a hybrid steel-concrete composite truss. We tendered and built it in eight weeks, ten days ahead of the redrawn schedule.
Week 14 condition vs. handover
Drag to compare the site as we found it — abandoned by the original GC mid-pour — with the completed Bedford Avenue elevation 22 months later.
Handover
Week 14
Results
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Delivered on the original date, $1.8m under final budget
Substantial completion was issued 11 days ahead of the recovery schedule, matching the developer's original target despite the 14-week delay we inherited. Final cost was $1.8m under the contracted GMP, with the savings returned to the client per our open-book agreement.
184 units leased within 90 days of TCO. The retail spaces were fully signed before practical completion. The public courtyard — a contractual community-amenity requirement — has become a regular venue for the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation's summer programming.
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