CITY ASPHALT CELEBRATES STATEN ISLAND PLANT BY SARAH REDOHL
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City Asphalt's new plant was delivered in August 2019 and erected that fall. From the first day City Asphalt began to lease Vanbro Corporation’s asphalt plant property on Staten Island in 2018, company officials knew it was only a matter of time before they’d replace the 70-year-old batch plant on the property. City Asphalt LLC, owned by the Cruz family and a leader in the New York City construction market, saw a shining opportunity beneath the rust of the old plant. Located along the west shore of Staten Island, the facility has barge and rail access and is also located just off the West Shore Expressway, making it an attractive supplier for paving contractors in Staten Island, Brooklyn and Manhattan. Despite being rebuilt three times during its 70 years in operation, the batch plant had sat unused since around 2010 and was in need of major repairs when the Cruz family took over. Bringing the old plant back to life was no easy task. “It was much more expensive over the long term than buying a new plant,” said City Asphalt General Manager Matthew Cruz.
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The Vanderbilt family, under the name of VANBRO Corporation, operated an asphalt plant on this 42-acre property as far back as 1947. All of the wiring had to be replaced, much of the equipment was rusted out, the control room needed to be repaired and the computers replaced. “It was like playing Whac-AMole,” Cruz said. “When we fixed one thing, another thing would break. We ended up virtually rebuilding the entire plant from scratch.” It was a necessary, albeit temporary, hardship. “The plan was always to build a new plant once we could get through the arduous permitting process in New York City,” Cruz said. They immediately began working toward obtaining the necessary permits in 2015. In the meantime, they had to rely on the old batch plant in order to serve their customers,
including an annual supply contract to provide 150,000 to 200,000 tons of asphalt for the New York City Department of Transportation’s operations in Staten Island. That was in addition to another 50,000 to 100,000 tons for City Asphalt’s private customers.
The NYC DOT owns and operates two of its own asphalt plants, one in Brooklyn and one in Queens, contracting out mix supply for the other three boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island. Despite their numerous improvements, the old batch plant was often a source of frustration and expense. For example, when the old batch plant’s gearbox broke down, they needed to immediately source a suitable replacement. Ultimately, they found a 40-year-old gearbox on eBay that had been sitting in a ga-
