First ride on New York Wheel pushed back to April 2018

Tomorrow: Read a timeline for the Wheel construction on silive.com.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Rich Marin, CEO of the New York Wheel, admits his initial predication for the opening of his 630-foot-high tourist attraction was early, then mid-, and then late 2017.

But now that date has been pushed back to April 2018.

"We wanted to have this open for the 2017 season and we're not able to have it open for the 2017 season. It was more complicated in the engineering process, and fabrication was simply more complex than we were led to believe. But we are determined to open for the full length of the 2018 season," said Marin.

"If someone says, 'You're a year behind,' It's hard for me to not shrug and say, 'I suppose we are a year behind.' ...But we now agree with a full degree of confidence that it's going to be open for the full extent of the 2018 season," he added.

Construction of the 60-story, $580 million Wheel -- to be located adjacent to the Richmond Country Bank Ballpark and Empire Outlets -- has had its share of delays, including the length of time it took to get the parking garage up and running, as well as some investor funding disputes.

CONSTRUCTION

Having started the construction in May 2015, the building of the Wheel is now rapidly progressing, said Marin.

Over the last year and three months, crews have completed the construction of the foundations for all three structures -- the Wheel, parking garage and a terminal building -- that will take shape on the site.

"The foundations are critically important to the Wheel and that's why so much time and attention was spent on those foundations," said Marin.

The parking garage, which includes valet parking for 820 vehicles, opened last week.

The next phase of work will include building the Wheel itself, from the bottom up.

Contractors are working on the terminal building, a steel structure that will be the hub of Wheel operations. Marin said he expects the building's exterior to be complete sometime in November, and interior work finished by May.

Other work, happening simultaneously, includes the second phase of construction for the garage.

MARIN'S OPTIMISM

Despite the delays, Marin said he's "always optimistic."

"Sometimes people wonder if I'm being too optimistic, but it's my job to be optimistic, and it's my job to push people to work as quickly as possible. I have a choice every time I'm asked about a date. I can try to not be wrong, and say this won't happen for 2X period of time, but my guess will be that it may only take 1.5X period of time," he said.

"Nothing will go as quickly as it can unless you have a deadline. We put deadlines out there and we put stakes in the ground because we want people to work hard toward getting things done quickly," he added.

MARIN'S DEADLINES

Marin said because of his sometimes tough-to-meet deadlines, he thinks the project progresses better.

"I think by being more aggressive in my deadlines and standards, I end up advancing the date a little bit because people are working harder to try to achieve that," said Marin.

"People say, 'You're lousy at guessing the dates because it's always later than you say.' All I'm going to say is if I picked a later date I can assure you of one thing, that it would have been even later still," he added.

TIMING THE OPENING

Marin said he thinks in terms of seasons. And opening a huge attraction in the middle of winter isn't the most timely decision. For this reason, he plans to have all construction complete by the end of 2017, with the first few months of 2018 devoted to testing every aspect of the Wheel's functionality.

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