Livingston Electrical Associates receives national recognition for its work.
With its own in-house engineering staff, Livingston Electrical Associates is lighting up the New York City skyline with high-profile, award-winning projects.
A full-service design/build electrical contracting and engineering firm, the Flushing, N.Y.-based company specializes in new construction and remodeling of high-rise and mid-rise residential towers, hotels and dormitories.
Livingston Electrical – which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year – has extensive experience dealing with standard and emergency power distribution systems, deck work, general circuitry, fire alarms and low-voltage systems such as access control, CCTV, telecommunication, audiovisual and lighting control.
“We are an engineering firm that does electrical contracting,” says Daniel Livingston, professional engineer and the company’s president.
The firm’s in-house engineering staff designs shop drawings and produces highly detailed color CAD plans that take the guesswork out of the installation process.
Livingston Electrical prides itself on delivering high quality, cost-effective electrical installations in a timely manner – accomplished through value engineering, intelligent installation and by extensive coordination with a project’s architects, tradesmen and other engineers.
“We focus heavily on value engineering,” says Jeffrey Burdier, professional engineer and the company’s senior vice president. “All our project managers are either electrical engineers or professional engineers. You don’t typically find that in an electrical contracting firm.”
Award-Winning Work
In the past two years, Livingston Electrical has received national recognition for its work on two high-profile projects in New York City – Times Square Edition Hotel and 56 Leonard (aka the “Jenga” building).
The Times Square Edition Hotel redesign project won the 2019 Project Excellence Award in the design/build over $1 million category from the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA).
Hovering above Times Square’s supersized billboards in one of the busiest areas of the world, the 42-story hotel features sweeping views of the midtown skyline, 452 guest rooms, a state-of-the-art fitness center and roughly 76,000 square feet of retail space which includes an entertainment venue, restaurants, lounges and bars with terraces and gardens.
One of the hotel’s unique features is an 18,000 square foot LED screen that wraps around its façade – the single-largest LED advertisement screen in New York.
“The sign was one of the biggest challenges of the project,” Burdier says. “An LED screen of this nature requires a significant amount of power.”
It took a lot of effort to maintain 25 percent of an existing structure in order to comply with city ordinances for the developers to be able to include the LED billboard. The erection of the superstructure included temporary shoring and bracing, as well as daily re-engineering and design changes with the discovery of undocumented column and structural placement.
“Other challenging elements to this project were that the hotel had several restaurants and kitchens, lounges and clubs,” Livingston says. “The amenities were extravagant and it required a tremendous amount of detail and coordination between the mechanical trades and the general construction carpentry trades.” The project called for a sophisticated design of the lighting and the lighting controls for the hotel, its restaurants and Paradise Club, which had its “Starburst Lights” system synced to music.
Livingston Electrical’s part of the project included engineering and installation of the entire electrical system for the hotel. Electrical distribution services were value engineered from the incoming service to the last receptacle. In addition to the light and power, the electrical scope of the project included the installation of a fire alarm system.
Designing Jenga
Commonly referred to as the Jenga building due to its architectural style, the 56 Leonard new construction project won the 2018 Project Excellence Award in the residential category from NECA. The one-of-a-kind 57-story skyscraper in New York City houses 145 unique luxury condominiums.
Livingston Electrical engineered and installed the entire electrical system and electrical distribution services were value engineered.
Installation included the core and shell distribution of a residential tower, fitting out the condos and 17,000 square feet of amenity space which included a 75-foot pool and a 25-seat screening room.
In addition to the lighting controls and power, Livingston Electrical installed a fire alarm system and telecommunication, access control, CCTV and audiovisual systems.
“What was challenging for the Jenga building was the physical structure,” Livingston says. “The core of the structure went up first and then they had to build out the balconies independently. That had an impact on the facade and general construction of the building. We were in every wall, every floor and every ceiling.”
The redesigned electrical systems for this building was a complex task because it required making unique accommodations for every floor and condo, both of which were different than the previous.
But Livingston Electrical is a company that enjoys challenging work. “Electrical contracting and engineering is a very demanding type of occupation,” Livingston says. “Fortunately, we have people that really care about and love what they do. The key to success on these projects starts with our people.”
