If you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, similarly you cannot build a massive, mixed use development without making a little noise.
But that analogy may be little comfort for people who simply want to sleep overnight without the sound of construction crews pouring concrete at 2 a.m.
That has been the case too often, according to at least one resident, at Cypress Waters, which is a 1,000 acre master-planned project on a sliver of land northeast of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport that spans the municipal limits of three cities – Dallas, Irving and Coppell. The project has waivers to perform the work overnight.
Two videos submitted to NBC DFW purport to show construction work happening in the overnight hours directly across from the apartment community The Neighborhoods at The Sound.
In one of those videos, shot at approximately 2 a.m. Monday, the developer – Billingsley Company – had obtained a Noise Ordinance Waiver from the City of Dallas which allows them to perform overnight construction work.
“These are very large concrete pours as they must cover an entire floor of the building at one time for the structural slab to be monolithic as designed. In other words, the concrete pours cannot be broken up into smaller batches since there are no construction joints allowed by design on each floor’s slab,” noted Dallas City Public Affairs Officer Corbin Rubinson. “Due to the large volume of construction in the Metroplex, concrete plants can limit the availability of large concrete batches to off hours since their schedules are so full.”
In addition, the company has obtained waivers for overnight work that is scheduled for Thursday and Friday of this week. The waiver allows for work to happen between 1 a.m. and 7 a.m.
Cypress Waters is a massive undertaking – at 1,000 acres it is approximately four times the size of the Legacy West development in Plano that is home to, among other entities, the North American headquarters for Toyota.
More than three dozen major businesses will have office space in Cypress Waters, including corporate campuses for familiar names like 7-Eleven, Smoothie King and Nokia.
In addition to over 2 million square feet of commercial office space, Cypress Waters will include 50,000 square feet of retail space, more than 1,200 apartments and a 300-acre lake.
A spokesperson for Dallas-based Billingsley emphasized that workers are well aware that overnight noise can be a nuisance.
“As with all of our new developments, we are upfront with our residents about upcoming construction and the noise that may accompany it,” said Tiffany Harlow, Director of Marketing for Billingsley Company. “We notify our residents in a couple of ways. As they are signing their lease they are notified that they are living in a new development, and construction and construction noise may happen on nights and weekends when necessary.”
Harlow acknowledged, however, that there was an internal miscommunication about what day the concrete work would be done at the beginning of this week.
“We were planning on notifying residents [Monday] for an overnight pour, but had a miscommunication on dates from the contractor in that the concrete pour happened [Sunday night] vs. [Monday night], Monday at 2 a.m. vs. Tuesday at 2 a.m.,” Harlow explained.
