The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) is a New York State public development corporation that provides public housing across New York City. NYCHA was the first corporation in the United States to provide housing for low and moderate income residents.

Recently, many NYCHA developments were faced with the challenge of aging elevator equipment. Furthermore, the high-volume of passengers in these buildings accelerated wear and tear and reduced their typical life expectancy. The frequency of unscheduled elevator outages was steadily increasing, causing inconvenience and diminished service quality to building residents. The NYCHA team decided it was time to develop an action plan to upgrade and modernize their elevators, to ensure the developments have safe and reliable equipment for daily use by residents. As part of NYCHA’s efforts to improve the future reliability of the elevators, BOCA Group was brought on board to provide their vertical transportation expertise and elevator modernization consulting. With over 300 developments and over 1,000 elevators, it was time to make a difference for the benefit of their residents and their daily transportation journey.

BOCA Group joined the redevelopment team for the NYCHA elevator upgrade project in early 2020 as the elevator consultant, and the project began during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The BOCA Group engineering team went on-site to perform engineering surveys at numerous sites in order to collect information and evaluate the condition of the existing equipment. As our teams traveled across New York City during these unprecedented times, we took all necessary precautions to keep ourselves and building residents safe, wearing COVID-19 protective gear along with standard OSHA Personal Protective Equipment.

BOCA Group is proud to be a part of such an extensive project, so far providing consultant design services for over 150 elevators in this phase of the project. As the elevator consultant, BOCA Group has played a significant role in the up-front elevator design process of the modernization. BOCA Group has worked extensively with the project team, and will continue to work with the team in the future, to develop the scope of work and budget recommendations necessary to upgrade the elevator system with safe, reliable, and state of the art equipment.

BOCA Group has worked efficiently to meet demanding timelines and goals while carefully navigating the constraints of the project.  It is BOCA Group’s utmost priority to provide an effective and safe design for the residents of New York City Housing Authority developments, and we are proud to be a part of such an important project.