Selected projects in Queens
New construction Metric is inspecting now or has recently completed in Queens, from 52,000 to 127,000 square feet. Client references are available on request.
22-60 46th Street / 22-61 45th Street
All required special inspections
727 Bay 32nd Street
All required special inspections and SWPPP
43-12 50th Street
Special inspections plus soil, masonry and EIFS
Queens is two boroughs, geologically
A ridge of glacial debris runs across the borough — the terminal moraine of the last ice sheet. The high ground of Queens sits on it: Ridgewood, Forest Hills, Forest Park, and the ridge out at Glen Oaks that reaches 258 feet, the highest point in the borough. It is the same ridge that crosses Brooklyn, and it divides Queens into two very different places to build.
North and west of it — Astoria, Long Island City, Woodside, where two of the projects above are — the ground is closer to the moraine itself: till, mixed material, variable from lot to lot. South of it, meltwater from the retreating glacier laid down a broad outwash plain of sand, silt and clay that runs all the way to Jamaica Bay.
Southern Queens is the soft half
Engineering studies of the city put the southern end of Queens, around JFK, among the areas with liquefaction potential — reclaimed or hydraulically filled ground described as very loose. At Flushing Meadows, a compact sandy stratum only ten to fifteen feet thick sits beneath sixty-five to eighty feet of loose silt, clay and sand, and the upper sixty feet of soft Holocene deposits can amplify ground motion.
For a job that means the same thing it means on the south shore of Brooklyn: the subsurface investigation is not a formality, the fill gets checked lift by lift, and deep foundations stop being the expensive option and start being the only one. What is particular to Queens is how quickly the picture changes — two lots a few blocks apart can want different foundations.
Sources: NYC Parks, Geological History of New York City; Engineering geology of New York City, IAEG 2006.
The inspections a Queens site tends to need
Your TR1 is what decides, not the borough. But these are the categories that keep coming up on the work we do here.
Soil, before anything else
Subsurface investigations (TR4), subgrade inspection before footings, and in-place density on every lift of fill. Our guide to soil compaction testing on NYC job sites covers what a failing lift costs you.
Two buildings, one job
The Astoria project is two eight-story buildings on one site. Pours, steel and masonry run in parallel on both, and every category has to be witnessed on each — it is twice the scheduling, not twice the paperwork at the end.
Deep foundations, south of the ridge
Continuous inspection of deep foundation elements (TR5) and helical piles (TR5H). See pile driving and deep foundation inspections in New York.
The envelope
EIFS is inspected at each stage, along with wall panels and veneers before closing. On the Woodside job the envelope work sits alongside the soil and masonry inspections, not after them.
Masonry and plank
Masonry at every wall and grouting, vertical masonry foundation elements before grouting, post-installed anchors at each installation. Common on the mid-rise residential work across the borough.
Concrete, start to finish
Design mix (TR3) before the first pour, sampling and testing (TR2) every pour, cast-in-place inspection at every pour and when the rebar is complete. The full list is in our TR1 checklist for general contractors.
Questions we get from Queens contractors
How far into Queens do you come?
All of it, and the rest of the city. The office and laboratory are at 184 Engineers Drive in Hicksville, which puts most of Queens closer to us than it is to a Manhattan agency. There are no satellite offices, the inspectors are Metric's own staff, and all testing is done in house.
How much notice do you need for an inspection?
As a working rule: one business day for scheduled pours and steel inspections; same day for sampling at the truck if an inspector is already on site; about a week for anything that needs the laboratory ready, such as pile load tests, prisms or large sampling programs.
I have two buildings on one permit. Is that one inspection program or two?
One program, but every witnessed category has to happen on each structure, and the two schedules rarely line up. In practice it means more coordination up front and a project manager who knows which building is pouring on which day. We do it now on the Astoria job.
Do I need a separate laboratory for the concrete?
No. Metric holds its own DOB concrete testing laboratory license and is A2LA accredited to ISO/IEC 17025, so sampling, curing and breaking all happen in house. One agency signs the TR1 and the lab reports come from the same place.
Does my job need a Class 1 agency?
It depends on the categories on your permit, not on where the job is. What a Class 1 special inspection agency is explains which categories require accreditation rather than plain registration — and why that distinction matters when the TR1 is signed.
Working on something that needs a Class 1 agency?
Send the drawings or the TR1. We call you back within the hour during office hours (Mon–Fri, 7 AM–4:30 PM ET) with the categories we cover and a quote.