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25 Franklin Boulevard, Long Beach — Replacing Every Window on an Oceanfront Building
Scope of Work
Surfview Towers stands directly on the Long Beach boardwalk, seven storeys of brick with the Atlantic across the sand from its front door. Alex GC replaced the windows through the building on an occupied, scaffolded facade: custom aluminum double-hung windows on the front elevation, Crystal aluminum windows on the rest of the building, and Alutech tilt-and-turn aluminum windows where the openings and the exposure called for a European sealed sash. All of it is glazed with Vitro Solarban 60 low-e insulated units fabricated by Oldcastle. It is the first Long Island project on this site and the most exposed site in the portfolio.
Three Windows for One Building
A whole-building replacement rarely wants one window everywhere, and this one wanted three. The front facade faces the ocean and the boardwalk, and its character is the paired double-hung: the custom aluminum units keep that look in a modern thermally broken frame. The side and rear elevations have the standard punched openings of a 1960s apartment block, and Crystal's aluminum line fits them well at a cost a building can carry across seven floors. And where a sash is going to take the wind straight off the water — the terrace-level runs, the triples on the side — the Alutech tilt-and-turn closes on compression gaskets and a multi-point lock, which is a different order of seal from anything that slides. See tilt-and-turn windows for why that matters in wind.
Solarban 60, on the Beach
The glass is Vitro's Solarban 60 on the second surface of an insulated unit, fabricated by Oldcastle. On an oceanfront facade the coating does two jobs: it cuts the solar gain from a sun that comes off the water as well as the sky, and it holds heat in through a winter of onshore wind. It is the same coating we used on 2518 Ocean Avenue, and the reason we keep specifying it is that it stays clear rather than tinting the view, which on this building is the whole point of the apartment. See Vitro glass and low-e glass.
Working on the Boardwalk
The photographs show the conditions: pipe scaffold on the boardwalk side, the beach behind it, the apartments occupied throughout. On a job like this each window comes out and goes in the same day so no apartment is open to the weather overnight; the old frame is cut out to the masonry and the new one set into the brick reveal with a sealed perimeter, then the sill and head are flashed against water that arrives sideways. Salt air also decides the fixings and finishes, because on the shore the corrosion that takes twenty years inland takes five.
Oldcastle, Crystal, Alutech
This project is on the site partly because it shows how we put suppliers together. Oldcastle fabricated the insulated units for all three window types so the glass matches across the building; Crystal supplied the standard aluminum units; Alutech the tilt-and-turn; and the double-hungs were made to the facade. One installer, one glass, three frames — the building reads as one job from the boardwalk even though it is three products.
Photographs
Photographs from April and May 2023 during the installation, with the scaffold on the boardwalk and the labels still on the glass.
Similar Work and Related Specifications
Double-hung windows · Tilt-and-turn windows · Crystal windows · Alutech aluminum · Vitro glass · Property services · 2518 Ocean Avenue, Brooklyn
Planning Something Similar?
For a whole-building window replacement on the water, send us the elevations and the count. We will tell you which openings want which window, specify the glass for the exposure, and plan the scaffold so every apartment is closed by nightfall.