Sky's the limit on pre-fab towers for Atlantic Yards developer

4:30 AM, February 8, 2012 ι By  RICH CALDER

There’s a lot more riding on whether developer Bruce Ratner can build the world’s tallest pre-fabricated building than just completing Brooklyn’s long-delayed Atlantic Yards project.

Ratner’s company stands to position itself as the go-to developer for what could become a soaring modular-building industry.

Bob Sanna, executive vice president of Forest City Ratner Cos., said yesterday that the company is willing to “share” such technology and is open to also factory-building “modules” for other developers to build modular towers.

“This is our iPhone moment,” Sanna said during a real estate roundtable hosted by the Brooklyn Historical Society.

“Certainly as we take this business forward, we are not trying to hide this technology, and not sell it. I think it will be in our interest to share it.”

FCR is currently seeking financing to build a prefabricated, 32-story residential building at the corner of Dean Street and Flatbush Avenue — the first of 16 towers slated for a once financially doomed project that also includes an under-construction arena for the NBA’s Nets.

Sanna said modular construction — where whole sections are built off-site and then attached to the building like Legos — could slash costs for the $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards development by at least 25 percent under “modest” estimates.

Under the pre-fab plan, which is opposed by construction unions because it would mean less jobs, the towers would go up like a huge Lego project, floor-by-floor, with each floor comprised of “pods” that will be built off site and then lifted in place and bolted together.

A 25-story dormitory built in 2009 in Wolverhampton, England, is currently the world’s tallest modular structure. Some local developers have used the technology on a far smaller scale, but have stood away from building higher because of issues with wind.

rcalder@nypost.com