After four years of delayed construction, financial missteps, and lawsuits, Forest City Ratner and Greenland U.S.A. are finally welcoming tenants into 461 Dean Street, currently the tallest high-rise in the world constructed with modular units. The 32-story tower on the edge of Prospect Heights and Park Slope offers sweeping views of brownstone Brooklyn, but its lengthy construction saga highlights the issues developers face when they build with modular construction in New York City. — newyorkyimby.com

The world’s tallest proposed modular tower may actually reach its full potential.

Developer Bruce Ratner has finally resumed work on his 32-story residential building next to the Barclays Center after a five-month hiatus stemming from a dispute with construction giant Skanska over the pre-fabricated design.

As a result of that legal fight, Ratner gained control of Skanska’s factory in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where modules for the proposed tallest modular tower were made. — nydailynews.com

Greenland’s affordable housing venture in Brooklyn, 298 apartments in an 18-story building in Prospect Heights, is part of a larger 15-tower apartment project in Atlantic Yards, (now rebranded “Pacific Park) adjacent to the Barclays Center, which will cost an estimated $4.9 billion to build. Half of the 298 units are supposed to be for families that make as low as 40% of the median income for the area—that’s about $33,560 for a family of four. — qz.com

Work remains halted at the site of the modular residential tower next to the Barclays Center arena in Brooklyn. The building is part of the 22-acre, mixed-use development formerly known as Atlantic Yards and now branded Pacific Park. [...]

The dispute ... centers on the design and construction of the pre-fabricated units that make up the modular tower. The 34-story residential high-rise was supposed to be completed in July 2014. So far only 10 of the proposed 34 stories are finished — wnyc.org

Big real estate projects sometimes go through name changes, but the announcement August 4th that the Atlantic Yards mega-development near downtown Brooklyn, which has faced steady controversy since it emerged in 2003, would become Pacific Park Brooklyn, was an unusual, strategic and dubious adjustment. — nextcity.org

Inside a warehouse at the Brooklyn Navy Yard steel beams and flat metal sheeting rest atop a workbench. A diagram–which looks an awful lot like IKEA furniture assembly instructions–spells out where each beam and metal screw belongs. [...]

The metal may not look like much yet, but it’s on its way to becoming part of the world’s tallest modular residential high-rise. [...]

“This is bringing the best of manufacturing and construction together.” — forbes.com

Modular construction has long been a dream of architects, for its efficiency and control, and now it could be a boon for New York City developers as well, since prefab methods can save 20 to 30 percent from traditional design methods. — New York Observer