Search Results for: planned residential development

February 11, 2019

Learning from Seattle: How Amazon could shape NYC real estate

Since Amazon announced it had selected Long Island City for its new headquarters last fall, a lot of people have wondered what will happen to the neighborhood and its surrounding communities. While LIC has already undergone a series of radical changes of the past two decades—first there was an influx of artists seeking larger live-work spaces and later a wave of condo developments—the arrival of Amazon promises to have an even deeper impact on LIC. And the potential negative effect of the tech giant moving into town has not gone unnoticed by public officials and locals, who have led a strong opposition campaign. It was reported on Friday that Amazon was reconsidering its plan to move to the neighborhood after facing an intense backlash from those who fear increased rents and even more congestion. But with no plan to officially abandon Queens, it's important to understand what could happen if Amazon does put down roots in LIC by first looking at how the company has already changed Seattle, where it first set up shop back in 1994.
More on the effect
January 17, 2019

City pulls permits for Extell’s controversial Upper West Side tower

Less than two months after rejecting a challenge against the tallest tower planned for the Upper West Side, the Department of Buildings has decided to pull permits for Extell Development’s 775-foot tower at 50 West 66th Street, as NY1 first reported. In December, opponents argued that the Snøhetta-designed structure was misusing structural voids—where a building’s mechanical equipment is stored—to add height without increasing square footage. They said the 160-foot mechanical spaces were designed not out of necessity, but presumably to boost the overall height of the apartments—and their price tags. Now, the DOB has made a surprise reversal, ruling that these spaces do not meet the current standards of the New York City Zoning Resolution. 
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December 7, 2018

From Mark Twain and the Lovin’ Spoonful to Tech Hub: The overlooked history of Union Square South

Straddling Greenwich Village and the East Village, the neighborhood south of Union Square between Fifth and Third Avenues was once a center of groundbreaking commercial innovations, radical leftist politics, and the artistic avant-garde. With the city’s recent decision to allow an upzoning for a "Tech Hub" on the neighborhood’s doorstep on 14th Street, there are concerns that the resilient and architecturally intact neighborhood may face irreversible change. While they’re still here, take a tour of some of the many sites of remarkable cultural history, nestled in this compact neighborhood just south of one of our city’s busiest hubs.
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December 7, 2018

New renderings of 1,100-unit Hunter’s Point South project in Long Island City

New renderings were released this week of the one million square foot development coming to the Long Island City's Hunter's Point South neighborhood. Designed by Handel Architects, the complex features two high-rise towers, retail, and community space. Notably, the project is expected to bring 1,100 new residential units, with 80 percent of them permanently affordable. The complex sits less than a mile from the planned office complex of Amazon, which chose the Queens neighborhood last month for its new home. As CityRealty reported, the two towers will rise 57 and 33 floors, with the taller of the two reaching 600 feet high, which would make it the tallest building on the waterfront.
See the LIC project
December 6, 2018

Controversial Two Bridges towers get city approval despite community ambivalence

Update 12/7/18: The City Council and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer filed a suit in the Manhattan Supreme Court "claiming city planners usurped the Council’s authority over land-use issues in approving the project," reported The Real Deal. The City Planning Commission gave the green light Wednesday to a controversial application filed by four developers to build three new residential towers in the Lower East Side's Two Bridges development, which are expected to add 3,000 housing units between them, The Real Deal reports. 700 units will be affordable. The large-scale residential towers were approved in a 10-3 vote on Wednesday, after a lengthy, often acrimonious review process. The towers are comprised of JDS Development’s 1,000-unit rental tower at 247 Cherry Street, L+M Development and CIM Group’s 798-foot tower at 260 South Street; and Starrett Corporation’s 730-foot building at 259 Clinton Street.
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December 4, 2018

Queens senator wants to crack down on real estate ‘insider trading’ following Amazon deal

State Sen. Michael Gianaris announced on Tuesday plans to draft legislation aimed at cracking down on insider dealing in real estate. The proposed law comes after a report in the Wall Street Journal found Amazon employees were buying condos in Long Island City before the company had publicly announced plans to build their second headquarters in the neighborhood. The legislation would prohibit anyone from using confidential government information to buy or sell real estate, according to Gianaris.
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November 27, 2018

Permits filed for 22-story Union Square tech hub with plans for major digital training center

The New York Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) has filed permits to construct a 22-floor tech hub at 114 East 14th Street near Union Square, CityRealty reports. Officially known as the Union Square Tech Training Center, the 254,000-square-foot, $250 million, facility has big plans to ramp up NYC's high-tech firepower: In addition to affordable office space for startups, market-rate office space for tech companies, and a retail and market area run by Urbanspace, the nonprofit Civic Hall will be running a new digital skills training center at the midblock site once occupied by a PC Richard & Son electronics store.
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November 26, 2018

Long Island City advocates want to obtain a city-owned building before Amazon takes over

Long Island City advocates are requesting ownership of a city-owned building that sits on land soon to be developed by Amazon for its second headquarters, as the Wall Street Journal first reported. The sprawling, block-long structure at 44-36 Vernon Boulevard currently houses offices related to the city's Department of Education along with over 1,000 staff members. For the past three years, local residents have asked for the building to be turned into a community facility. With all eyes on Long Island City due to Amazon's impending move there, advocates believe this is their last chance for the community to take over the property.
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November 6, 2018

New performing arts center announced for $400M Jersey City university project

Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop just announced the newest phase of development on New Jersey City University's University Place project, Jersey Digs reports. The University and Strategic Development Group will break ground in early 2019 on University PAC, a state-of-the-art performing arts complex. University PAC, a 500-seat theater, and the Center for Music, Dance and Theater, a cutting-edge academic complex for the performing arts will serve as the centerpiece of University Place, serving both the university and the larger community.
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November 6, 2018

Work finally resumes at Brooklyn’s first 1,000+ foot tower

Since the plan to bring the first supertall tower to Brooklyn was approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in the spring of 2016, few updates have been announced about the project. While construction kicked off last year, work on 9 DeKalb Avenue was stalled for months. But YIMBY reported on Tuesday that construction of the Downtown Brooklyn tower appears to have made some progress, with its foundation now visible and workers on site. The planned 1,066-foot-tower is being developed by JDS Development, with SHoP Architects handling its design.
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October 18, 2018

Developers of controversial Two Bridges towers pitch $55M in transit and open space improvements

During a City Planning Commission hearing on Wednesday, local residents and officials of the Two Bridges community voiced their strong opposition to four towers planned for the Lower Manhattan neighborhood. Those who testified against the buildings questioned the developer's draft environmental impact study (DEIS), which found the projects would not cause displacement, amNY reported. Developers also announced measures to mitigate the potential adverse effects on the neighborhood, which include upgrading the F train station at East Broadway, improving public parks, and implementing flood protection measures.
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October 11, 2018

Open House New York in Greenwich Village: The history of three unique sites

Among the many delights included in this weekend’s Open House New York will be three iconic Greenwich Village buildings--a Gothic Revival church with many architectural firsts, a library that was originally a courthouse which heard the "Trial of the Century," and a groundbreaking artists' housing complex that was formerly home to Bell Telephone Labs and the site where color television was invented. These extraordinary landmarks span three centuries of American history, reflecting the evolution of our city’s spiritual, artistic, industrial, scientific, and civic life.
Learn more about their unique histories
September 26, 2018

New details for Brooklyn’s Pacific Park and a first look at its tallest tower

The development of Pacific Park, a 22-acre mixed-use complex near the Barclays Center, has entered its next phase Greenland Forest City Partners announced Wednesday. The developer is bringing on TF Cornerstone and the Brodsky Organization as development partners for the project. The duo will develop three parcels at the site, which include three rental buildings, a new public school, and new open space. Greenland also announced construction is set to begin in the spring for the park's tallest tower, a more than 500-foot tall tower designed by Perkins Eastman.
More details here
September 11, 2018

Dawn of a new Downtown: The transformation of Lower Manhattan since 9/11

In 2010, Lower Manhattan was still deeply scarred by the attacks of 9-11. With much of the neighborhood under construction, a high vacancy rate, and few full-time residents, walking around the area, especially outside business hours, often felt like walking through a ghost town. It was, in many respects, a neighborhood in waiting. Since 2011, which marked the opening of the 9/11 Memorial—and the symbolic end of the neighborhood’s long period of recovery from the 9/11 attacks—Lower Manhattan has undergone a transformation that is difficult to ignore. New businesses have opened, new residential developments have launched, the vacancy rate has drastically declined, and in many respects, an entirely new neighborhood has taken shape.
The dawn of a new Downtown
August 27, 2018

City kicks off Governors Island rezoning process

The city has launched the public review process for rezoning Governors Island, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Friday. A notice announcing the first public hearing for the plan was posted by the city, a critical part of the environmental review process (h/t Crain's). The rezoning would create 4.5 million square feet of commercial, academic and cultural development, part of an endeavor to turn the 172-acre island into a 24/7 community.
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August 20, 2018

New plans unveiled for creative and industrial office space in Greenpoint

Simon Baron Development has announced plans for a seven-story office building at 12 Franklin Street on the Greenpoint/North Williamsburg border. The project, designed by FXCollaborative, will rise in an area bristling with residential development, dining and entertainment choices but with a shortage, according to the developer, of Class A office space geared toward small businesses. The building's 134,000 square feet of office, retail and rooftop amenity space will include 23,000 square feet of manufacturing space–the building's design was intended to reinforce the industrial character of the neighborhood. The project is scheduled for public review today.
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August 8, 2018

21-story Union Square tech hub gets green light from City Council despite community concerns

The New York City Council voted Wednesday to approve plans to build a new tech hub on city-owned land at 124 East 14th Street near Union Square. As Crain's reported, last Thursday the building received the go-ahead from the zoning subcommittee that was reviewing the development of the 21-story building that supporters expect will be a resource for the "tech-for-good" community and provide jobs for lower-income workers. The project is being developed jointly by the city's Economic Development Corp. and developer RAL Development Service; it is expected to open in 2020. The proposed tech center, which the mayor hopes will nurture budding entrepreneurs in the technology field and bring over 600 jobs to New Yorkers, is planned at the site of a P.C. Richard & Son store, in an area already filled with new developments with more on the way.
Not everyone is excited, however
June 25, 2018

New renderings and details for Perkins Eastman’s 730-foot tower at controversial Two Bridges site

Additional details and a new rendering have been unveiled this week for a 62-story Lower East Side skyscraper designed by Perkins Eastman Architects, nearly two years after 6sqft first wrote about the project. Located at 259 Clinton Street, the tower is a part of a controversial three-building project coming to the waterfront of the Two Bridges neighborhood. According to YIMBY, latest plans for 259 Clinton Street, developed by Starret Development, call for a 730-foot tower, slightly higher than an earlier 724-foot proposal.
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June 8, 2018

East Harlem’s affordable Sendero Verde complex gets fresh renderings and a 384-unit mixed-use tower

Permits have been filed for a 37-story, 384-unit tower in East Harlem as part of Sendero Verde, a massive mixed-use complex developed by Jonathan Rose Companies and L + M Development. The site's newest building is set to rise at 1681 Madison Avenue and measure just over 385,000 square feet. Floors five through 36 of the Handel Architects-designed building will contain 12 apartments each; offices and retail space will occupy the first three levels, as CityRealty learned. A fresh pair of renderings of Sendero Verde highlights the winding central landscaped path, nonprofit DREAM's charter school and the extensive community space planned for the development.
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June 7, 2018

Lincoln Square’s grand finale: From slum clearance to a new master plan

Lincoln Square, a part of the Upper West Side, is a literal square of approximately 50 blocks that runs east-west from Central Park West to the West Side Drive and north-south from 59th to 72nd Streets. The neighborhood, which is bisected by Broadway and contains the Lincoln Center “superblock,” has an enormous amount of culture, loads of prestigious schools, tons of old-school luxury residences lining the park, and a massive, five-acre, four-building new development called Waterline Square, finalizing a decades-long master plan for the neighborhood. Ahead, we take a look at the neighborhood's history, from its Dutch roots to Robert Moses' slum clearance, modern residential development, and all the amenities that make this area more fun than one may think.
Your guide to Lincoln Square
May 4, 2018

Jane Jacobs’ NYC: The sites that inspired her work and preservation legacy

Jane Jacobs’ birthday on May 4 is marked throughout the world as an occasion to celebrate one’s own city -- its history, diversity, and continued vitality. “Jane’s Walks” are conducted across the country to encourage average citizens to appreciate and engage the complex and dazzling ecosystems which make up our cityscapes (Here in NYC, MAS is hosting 200+ free walks throughout the city from today through Sunday). But there’s no place better to appreciate all things Jane Jacobs than Greenwich Village, the neighborhood in which she lived and which so informed and inspired her writings and activism, in turn helping to save it from destruction.
Tour Jane Jacobs' NYC
April 30, 2018

See new renderings of ‘Ocean Dreams,’ Coney Island’s wavy Surf Avenue rental towers

New renderings have been revealed showing real estate mogul John Catsimatidis' Coney Island rental project at 3514 Surf Avenue known as Ocean Dreams, shown here courtesy of CityRealty. The American Institute of Architecture (AIA), which is currently taking votes for their People's Choice award in Brooklyn, has included the 425-unit rental complex among the contenders. The building is being developed by Catsimatidis' Red Apple Group. Catsimatidis, who has big dreams indeed for the development, proposed a trolley-like streetcar service to access the Stillwell Avenue subway station, and once said he wanted to make the development look like Miami Beach.
More renderings this way
April 24, 2018

After landmarking news, historic Carroll Gardens schoolhouse is back on the market for $5M

An unusual Carroll Gardens building, once the first freestanding kindergarten to be built in Brooklyn, is seeking a new owner, asking $4.95 million, now that it may not be headed for the wrecking ball. The Landmarks Preservation Commission calendared the building (along with the apartment building next door), now a unique single-family residence, at 236 President Street for landmark status consideration on Tuesday. Neighborhood residents and concerned citizens–including folk hero Joan Baez, whose grandfather once lived next door–have been rallying to stop the building's planned demolition as Brooklyn Paper reported last month.
Imagine the possibilities
April 19, 2018

Why Weehawken? Short commutes and NYC skyline views along the waterfront

Lin Manuel Miranda, the creator of the musical phenom Hamilton, tweeted in January that he changed three lyrics for the show’s London opening: John Adams, the Potomac River and Weehawken. According to Miranda, those words were too specific to America. According to Broadway Buzz, “Burr's proposal of a duel in ‘Your Obedient Servant’ now specifically points to New Jersey rather than the town of Weehawken. The Broadway lyric "Weehawken, dawn, guns drawn" has become ‘New Jersey, dawn, guns drawn.’” In July 1804, Alexander Hamilton was mortally wounded during a duel with Aaron Burr in Weehawken and died the following day in New York City. Tragically, Hamilton’s son was killed on the same spot three years earlier. One of the plaques in Alexander Hamilton Park describes many of the other unknown “duelists” who “all came to Weehawken to defend their honor according to the custom of the day. Located on the Hudson River, Weehawken does have a very “American” history but it should be highlighted, not diminished. Ahead, learn the ins and outs of Weehawken, from its historic waterfront parks and duel grounds to its burgeoning real estate scene.
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April 10, 2018

Construction kicks off for Handel Architects’ mixed-use tower at Essex Crossing

Construction of Handel Architects' mixed-use tower planned for the Lower East Side's Essex Crossing development has officially begun. Located at 180 Broome Street, the tower sits at the Manhattan entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge, the structure which influenced the oversized concrete frames in the building's design. The tower includes 263 apartments, retail at street level, office space on levels two through five and a section of the massive marketplace below ground, the Market Line. According to CityRealty, the start of construction at 180 Broome makes it the sixth site to begin building in the nine-site complex.
Take a peek