Feed

Developing Situations

By Stephen Jacob Smith 6/03 12:35pm

Developing Situations

Get your burgers while you still can. (Photo via Propertyshark.)

Williamsburg White Castle Not Long For This World?

Metropolitan Avenue in Williamsburg hasn’t seen much development since it was upzoned in 2009, owing to the financial crisis and development freeze that has gripped the city. But with the thaw lifting, at least one player apparently sees potential on the forlorn strip, one of only two streets east of the BQE where six-story tenement-scale development is allowed: a group called 781 Metro Investors LLC just picked up the White Castle at Metropolitan and Humboldt for $6.72 million, according to city records. Read More

By Stephen Jacob Smith 5/10 3:53pm

Developing Situations

There are a lot of hospitals in the area. Could you tell?

At Home Among the Hospitals? David Winter’s Firm Buys East Side Development Site

Along its most institutional stretch between the East Village and Murray Hill, the condos First Avenue is best known for are medical, not residential. From Bellevue to NYU, it’s a place where people want their stays to be as brief as possible.

But with Manhattan’s residential market coming roaring back to life, developers are setting their sights on the island’s less-developed fringes. New York’s first modern micro-apartments are going up on a city-owned site at 335 East 27th Street and Michael Stern’s JDS Development is nipping at the heels of Kips Bay, with a two-tower, 800-unit project set to break ground this summer at an old ConEd site at First Avenue between East 35th and 36th Streets.

“The  neighborhood is crying out for something modern and upscale,” he told the Wall Street Journal in March.

And now 40 North, a press-shy wealth management firm with offices on the 30th floor of the ultra-prime Solow Building, is plunging straight into the heart of the hospital district. The firm just picked up a $32 million chunk of land on the southeast corner of First Avenue and East 24th Street. Read More

By Stephen Jacob Smith 4/30 10:15am

Developing Situations

Condos at Boerum and Dean, developed by XXX in 2002.

Townhouse Torrent! Bluerock Plans Five Brick Neo-Brownstones for Pacific Street

Brooklyn has long been known for its townhouses, but usually they’re prewar brownstones. New development, on the other hand—at least the market-rate kind—tends to be multifamily, with developers cramming in as many small units as they can in send-ups of Manhattan condo towers.

But developers have started to warm to the single-family spreads (and not surprisingly, given the soaring cost of Brooklyn townhouses). Following on the heels of Carroll Gardens’ Sackett Union townhouses (six left, if you’ve got $4 million burning a hole in your pocket) and the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s approval of Dumbo’s first new townhouses comes word that five new townhouses are in the works for… well, we’re not quite sure whether it’s Boerum Hill or Cobble Hill, and we’d rather scratch out our eyes than call it BoCoCa(Go?), so we’ll just go with the historical term for the entire swath and call it South Brooklyn. Read More

By Stephen Jacob Smith 4/18 4:36pm

Developing Situations

Pennsylvania bluestone (mined in upstate New York) is a favorite building material of DDG's Peter Guthrie.

DDG Ups Its Game: Bigger Projects, Including Some Uptown, on the Horizon

DDG has been taking downtown by storm. The firm started out in the city doing small projects—a renovation in Gramercy, townhouses in Carroll Gardens—but has quickly graduated to larger projects. From 345 Meatpacking, the firm’s Yayoi Kusama-netted project on West 14th Street, to the cast aluminum Chocolate Factory building at 325 West Broadway, the fully Read More

By Matt Chaban 1/15 5:21pm

Developing Situations

10 Photos

Manhattan West Ho

Manhattan West on the Rise: Brookfield Breaks Ground on 60-Story Twin Towers

For the second time in as many months, Mayor Michael Bloomberg trekked out the Far West Side for a groundbreaking on a major new development built over a set of railroad tracks. While Brookfield’s Manhattan West is not quite as big as The Related Company’s Hudson Yards, in its size and scale and heft and sheer exclamation of the arrival of this once derelict corner of the city, the project measures up pound for pound. Some 5.4 million square feet of offices and housing and shopping on not much more than one city block.

“With today’s groundbreaking, we’re taking a major step forward in the transformation and rebirth of the Far West Side of Manhattan,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said from the podium at the corner of 33rd Street and Ninth Avenue. Read More

By Jess Schiewe 6/15/12 4:23pm

Developing Situations

Don't let these pretty lights distract you from the rampant development that's taking place in Tribeca. (Flickr, Garrett Cox)

How to Make It in Tribeca: Be Sleek Yet Just Historical Enough

Historic designations are like monkey traps (yes, these exist): they work in the beginning, but eventually their intended targets learn how to out-smart them. Case in point: development in Tribeca.

For years, the neighborhood’s “historic designation has helped preserve [Tribeca’s] architectural character and low-density environs,” the Wall Street Journal writes, but developers are increasingly finding ways to get around the zoning restrictions.  Spurred in part by buyers’ high demand to live in the low-density, somewhat remote area, brokers and developers have lined up a number of new projects that are set to open in the next 18 to 24 months. While some of these new projects are loft and warehouse conversions, most of them are ground-up construction projects.  And boy are there a lot of them.

Read More

By Eddie Small 5/11/12 5:48pm

Developing Situations

Mega Times Square. (Getty)

Putting the Mega in Megaprojects: Megamen and Women (Ross, Pinsky, Yaro, Weisbrod) Debate Why Building Big Matters

According to notable English language scholar Homer Simpson, “mega” means “good.”However, the speakers and panelists at the Center for Urban Real Estate’s  conference on New York City megaprojects took a slightly more detailed approach when attempting to define the term.

“I think it’s scale,” said Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association. “I think it’s a project that’s large enough to essentially transform an entire district of the city.

“To me, what makes a project a megaproject is not to much the size of the project but the size of the impact,” said Seth Pinksy, president of the city’s Economic Development Corporation partially agreeing with Yaro.

Stephen Ross, Related Companies chief, weighed in as well, saying that he thought “The most important thing is it’s transformative.” Read More

By Elise Knutsen 11/14/11 5:40pm

Developing Situations

Archival photo of Walker Tower (Photo from CORE blog)

Meet Walker Tower, the Newest Pre-war Building in Town

They don’t make ‘em like they used to. Between the glassy monstrosities sprouting up downtown and the faux- pre-war developments so popular among foreign buyers further north, New Yorkers are hard pressed to find a classic old building.

Come Spring 2012, however, 55 brand spanking new pre-war apartments will hit the market. How, you ask?  A time machine? The machinations of some smooth talking broker? Read More