The West Harlem rezoning is an especially historic occasion since it is the culmination of more than five years of planning by the community as a direct response to Columbia’s new Manhattanville campus. Following the university’s rezoning of the 17 acres between 125th Street and 133rd Street on which its new campus is already rising, the City Planning Commission promised to do a rezoning of the 90 blocks to the north, offering protection from potential overdevelopment that could be ushered in by the new school buildings.

"West Harlem is a vibrant, diverse community, and this rezoning will preserve the scale of its beautiful Beaux Arts, Queen Anne and Romanesque Revival brownstones and apartment houses built in the first decades of the 20th century," commission chair Amanda Burden said. "The rezoning also will reinvigorate an existing light manufacturing area just north of 125th Street by allowing commercial, community facility and residential uses in existing and new buildings to promote economic development and job creation."

In addition to this special district, the new rezoning restricts development on the side streets to roughly four stories, while on the avenues it rises between eight and 12 stories, where an exclusionary housing bonus can allow developers to add additional development in exchange for setting aside 20 percent of their projects as affordable. While local activists liked the rezoning overall, they felt that the upzoning along 145th Street, the area’s major commercial corridor, was too high. Historic preservation is also an issue, bound up in part with the overdevelopment issues.

"The Boys and Girls Club owns P.S. 186, one of the historic schools built by Charles Snider; he built hundreds of them at the turn of the century," said Catherine Abate, a local resident who has been active in the planning process. "Now, they could well develop it and do a 14-story residential structure, and with all that development, it's hard to think they wouldn't. I think the real concern for us [is] there are some important tenements, too, that with those kind of incentives, developers will have no choice but to demolish historic buildings and build bigger."

Borough President Scott Stringer, who persuaded the Bloomberg administration to undertake the rezoning five years ago and helped plan it through his office in the subsequent period, applauded the commission’s support for the plan. "The plan reflects the input of thousands of stakeholders in West Harlem and is a model for how we can craft a community-based planning process that finds common ground and safeguards a neighborhood," Mr. Stringer said. "It is a promise kept to the residents of West Harlem—and a proud moment for all who were involved."

The Bedford-Stuyvesant North rezoning covers 140 blocks across much of the neighborhood from Flushing Avenue (north) to Quincy Avenue (south), Classon and Franklin avenues (west) to Broadway (east). As with West Harlem, contextualism is key, again with downzonings on down-scale streets and offsetting upzonings on the wider north-south corridors, which also provides space for new affordable housing.

"Bedford-Stuyvesant is a vibrant community experiencing new growth and investment," Ms. Burden said. "This rezoning will ensure that new development complements the neighborhood while preserving the community’s historic brownstones, rowhouses and small apartment buildings. The proposed rezoning would protect neighborhood character, create new opportunities for permanently affordable housing and strengthen established commercial corridors, such as Broadway, Bedford and Myrtle Avenues."

Rejoice! Bed-Stuy gets a new affordable housing development.

Late last week, a new 48-unit affordable housing development opened at 926 Madison Street in Bed-Stuy, Brownstoner reports—which is good news for residents in a once-rough neighborhood where the locals' biggest fear is now likely rising rents.

Rents in the Brooklyn neighborhood went up 6.5 percent between April and May of this year; the neighborhood has seen steadily rising rents since the beginning of the year.

Not that Bed-Stuy's gentrifying status is any secret (this reporter's street has not one, but two coffee shops that do not serve drip coffee, but will be happy to make you an Americano if you are uncomfortable with the espresso revolution). Still, with Manhattan rents at record highs, presumably never to fall again, Brooklyn neighborhoods are likely to becoming increasingly more expensive.

The Madison Putnam, as the project is known, cost $15.3 million, which is roughly equivalent to the price of four townhouses in Brooklyn Heights. Made up of seven buildings built on city-owned property, the development includes 13 one-bedrooms, 27 two-bedrooms and 7 three-bedrooms. Brownstoner reports that 38 of the units are priced below 60 percent of the area median income ($49,800 for a family of four) and the other ten are priced for those earning below 40 percent ($32,040 for a family of four).

Each building is a four-story walk-up and they all come with access to a rear garden. It's probably not enough to offset the rise of luxury condos in the neighborhood bringing prices up, but at least it's something.

kvelsey@observer.com

Beside ample basement space, Ms. Levy also considered floor plates large enough to install what she described as ergonomically correct racks and other bicycle-specific design flourishes. After the jump, Geoffrey Prisco of Brutus Park Architecture and Ms. Levy review the floor plans with The Commercial Observer and discuss what, exactly, convinced the first-time business owner to open her 5,800-square-foot shop, Bicycle Roots, in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

1CO2600A0221

It was less than a year-ago that Lloyd Blankfein's set his loafered foot in Bed-Stuy, for the groundbreaking of the Bradford, a middle- and low-income development being constructed on Fulton Street. It was an unusual place to find the banker, but Goldman, capable of making money anywhere, had made a $45 million investment in the project. Brownstoner recently passed by the project, and, as you can see, it's come a long way in a short amount of time.The whole shebang is due to open next summer.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

Mr. Riney, a navigator of Brooklyn's shifting landscape.

To look at the buildings neighboring it, 567 Vanderbilt Avenue is a typical four-story, mixed-use apartment building in Brooklyn. From the bricks it was built with to the upwardly mobile professionals and strollers it presumably houses, the structure is nearly identical to the other assets in that corner of Prospect Heights.

With a recent shift on the ground—characterized by relatively new restaurants like James, Cornelius and, inevitably, the Vanderbilt—sales prices in the neighborhood are rising.

But over on Vanderbilt Avenue in particular, where trendy bars and cafés pop up each week, prices are absolutely surging, in part because of Nostradamus-like predictions of basketball fans flooding the zone once the Nets start playing inside the proposed Atlantic Yards arena and, ultimately, exiting en masse from doors leading directly to the street.

It was with those paradigm shifts in mind that, two weeks ago, 567 Vanderbilt Avenue changed hands for $1.3 million, a notable $50,000 above the initial asking price. Working behind the scenes was Shaun Riney, a 25-year-old Marcus & Millichap commercial real estate broker who has emerged out of nowhere as the face of multifamily housing deals in one of New York City’s most rapidly changing neighborhoods.

“It’s kind of, in a sense, ‘A rising tide will lift all boats,’” Mr. Riney said last week of the cruise ship-size arena that’s expected to be completed and ready for the 2013 National Basketball Association season.

The old-fashioned way for greenhorns to break into New York’s commercial real estate scene is a simple yet competitive process: reach out to the big firms—CB Richard Ellis, Cushman & Wakefield, Jones Lang LaSalle, for example—and pray for a break, get in, and spend the first year watching veterans ink deals.

Or they can go to the Brooklyn office of Marcus & Millichap, which for the past four years has offered brokers the chance to cut teeth in a borough brimming with profitable commercial real estate possibilities.

Launched in 2007 by J.D. Parker, now the Northeast regional director of Marcus & Millichap, the firm brought more than 25 young brokers into its offices in downtown Brooklyn to negotiate a combination of multifamily, retail and office deals. In four years, the firm has seen its sales numbers explode, rising from $28 million in 2007 to nearly $40 million in 2010.

“We’re on track to have our best year ever in Brooklyn,” said Mr. Parker. “And a lot of that is due to Shaun.”

Mr. Riney, a Detroit native with a physical resemblance to Boiler Room and Hawaii Five-0 actor Scott Caan and the track record of a much older and experienced broker, has closed 330,685 square feet in property deals and has handled $85.2 million worth of listings. During his first year at Marcus & Millichap’s Boston office in 2008—while working alongside then-colleague Zach Felson—he closed more than $35 million in sales, a feat that earned him the firm’s in-house “Rookie of the Year” honors.

Mr. Riney was given his own team in 2010, closing $18.1 million in property sales that same year. He received his second accolade, the “Marcus & Millichap Rising Star Award,” in January 2011.

Sitting in his bare Brooklyn office—adorned with little more than detailed maps of Brooklyn—Mr. Riney said he spends his weekends not at sports bars watching football with friends but scouring Property Shark listings, looking for his next big running pattern.

“This is the environment I love to be in,” said Mr. Riney, now an associate at the firm’s national multihousing group. “[It’s] fast-paced, intense, competitive, where every day can be a $50,000 day or a dud, depending on how much you want to work at it.”

Mr. Riney sells a variety of multifamily housing and mixed-use properties in Clinton Hill, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Fort Greene. And with the unveiling of Atlantic Yards just a year away, he thinks now is the perfect time for prospective buyers to invest near the massive—and controversial—new development in Prospect Heights.

He believes that the arrival of new tenants—the Atlantic Yards project is looking to add more than 6,300 units—and a growing local workforce—such as in the new office building on 470 Vanderbilt Avenue that recently signed the New York City Human Resources Administration to a new lease deal—will bring more new renters, prospective home owners and a new cadre of consumers to local retail.

More important, the development will encourage investors to snatch up mixed-use properties in the surrounding territories for future retail locations. He thinks that is especially the case for Vanderbilt and Washington avenues, mere blocks away from Atlantic Yards.

“I’d say 75-to-85 percent of Washington Avenue is mom-and-pop retail,” said Mr. Riney. “That’s the fringe, where an investor can still get in relatively cheaply in terms of the basis with nothing but, in my opinion, upside on a five- to 20-year time rise, which is what most real estate investors are looking at.”

At 567 Vanderbilt Avenue, for example, the building features a 600-square-foot commercial storefront, where the estimated rent tops out at $50 per square foot. “That rent will only increase as the project comes to fruition,” Mr. Riney said of a space that some day could house yet another trendy new restaurant.

A lot of his listings are multifamily buildings that feature retail—like 437-439 Tompkins Avenue that sold for $1.35 million, and a mixed-use building on 690 Prospect Place now on the market for $1.025 million.

“The bread and butter of Brooklyn in general is multifamily mixed-use buildings,” said Mr. Riney. “That’s what is selling right now, that’s what banks are willing to finance, and that is the majority of the housing stock in northern Brooklyn, and I think it’s the asset class which I think has the most potential.”

Brooklyn buyers, for the most part, agree. Thirty-nine multifamily buildings in the borough sold for a total of more than $116 million in the third quarter of this year—a dramatic improvement from the 14 buildings bought at $44 million at the same time last year, according to an Ariel Property Advisors quarterly report.

Mr. Riney got his taste for real estate when, as a senior at Boston University, he leased out his four-bedroom apartment to a group of sophomores at a $3,000 profit. He continued selling and leasing apartments in Boston during 2005, before making the move to New York City three years later.

Mr. Riney interviewed with CB Richard Ellis and Jones Lang LaSalle before sitting down with Mr. Parker and Mr. Felson for an interview at Marcus & Millichap’s Court Street office in downtown Brooklyn.

Another young broker was hired at the same time as Mr. Riney. Mr. Felson initially had his doubts about the young man from Detroit while holding a torch for the other hire. A year later, however, Mr. Riney and Mr. Felson had their profitable partnership, while the other hire had dropped out of the business entirely.

“[Riney is] not afraid of rejection in a business where you’re on purely a commission base,” said Mr. Felson, 28, who is now a senior vice president at Prado, a San Francisco-based real estate company. “I’d seen many guys come in and fall out of the business in six months because they couldn’t deal with hearing the word ‘no.’ He was really undeterred.”

And he’s made himself at home with Marcus & Millichap. Mr. Riney, a lifelong Newcastle United fan, plays on the Brooklyn Football Club with Mr. Parker and other colleagues at the firm.

He also has no plans to leave Brooklyn.

“My game plan is to continue to expand in northern Brooklyn,” said Mr. Riney. “There is a ton of untapped value in the Brooklyn marketplace, in these Brooklyn buildings, and I want to be a part of that.”
drosen@observer.com

Things have changed, indeed, for the central Brooklyn neighborhood and its boosters in the 40 years since Senators Robert Kennedy and Jacob Javits founded the preservationist Restoration Corporation.

Women dressed to the nines cried with amazement and pride at lavishly set tables in Steiner Studios in Brooklyn Navy Yard. When Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz made opening remarks about Restoration’s recent successes, including a $25 million renovation to restore and to modernize Restoration Plaza on Fulton Street, the dining room stirred with self-congratulatory remarks.

Bed-Stuy is undergoing a renaissance. The number of restaurants, shops and theaters are increasing along with real estate prices; and Restoration works to nourish a neighborhood that is affordable but also very much in flux.

Party-goers throughout the evening told The Observer about the negatives and the positives of Bed-Stuy’s gentrification. Joseph G. Sponholz, former vice chairman of Chase Manhattan and a Restoration board member who was honored, said that “gentrification is only a bad thing if it’s selfish. This organization is bridging the gap. It prevents outright pushing out.”

And Deborah Wright, CEO and chairwoman of Carver Bancorp Inc. and also an honoree, said she might sound old-fashioned, but “home ownership is really a commitment” and “today it’s [just] about investing.”

Melanie Castell, a high-school student who has participated in Restoration’s youth initiatives, gave a speech about an article she wrote about the “crisis” that gentrification sometimes is, how people can’t afford to live in their own homes.

But her friend Shajaban Salam doesn’t mind new people moving in: “That just creates more diversity.” Board member Lesia Bates Moss said that “healthy gentrification is about integration and empowerment."

“[It’s] an issue of apathy versus the impact of change,” Ms. Moss said. “You have to deal with the fact that people might be apathetic but they’re lives are going to change.”

The News, like many, blames the predatory practices of some subprime-mortgage lenders, those who feasted on the aspirations of people craving homeownership during the housing boom, people who probably shouldn't have had large sums of money loaned to them.

The dearth of such mortgages in Manhattan, however, ensures that at least one borough will likely escape the wave washing ashore from Staten Island through the Bronx.

- Tom Acitelli

- Max Abelson

Then we found out about a not-so-publicized meeting of convention organizers with Eliot Spitzer, where they demanded more blacks get jobs in all state agencies.

Now, comes word that all that convention planning and organizing has left the group in debt. Below is a copy of the group's latest agenda, which someone was kind enough to send along.

Note item No. 6:

A spokeswoman for the convention declined to put a dollar amount on the convention debt.

-- Azi Paybarah

"It rained every day," he said, after a press conference in Bed-Stuy on Tuesday. He sounded a little disgusted. "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Then it ended on Thursday late in the morning, early in the afternoon."

Mr. Markowitz stayed in Panoramic View on Old Montauk Highway, "right near Gurney's," with the Weather Channel's Local on the 8s replaying over and over inside the room. He and his wife figured, what with 100% chance of precipitation, it was time to eat.

"We went to lunch, even though I don't like lobster rolls," he said. "My favorite restaurant this week was a place called Harvest by the Pond. They really got something going. It's delicious, really delicious. It's not inexpensive, unlike Gosman's, which is mid-priced, which is why I love it."

Nightlife for the Markowitzes was spent with nightly strolls down the mainstrip in Montauk. And did they hit Gin Lane?

"I didn't go to East Hampton," he said. "I'm not into that Hamptons scene."

When the weather did finally turnaround on Thursday, Mr. Markowtiz tore off his Shelter Island sweatshirt, skipped lunch and took off for the beach.

"I gotta little tan," he said. "I had a T-shirt on and a pair of shorts and I took my T-shirt off for a couple hours."

Mr. Markowitz said he only tanned his front-side, and acquired a little farmer-tan effect. 'It's all gone by now," he said.

By Friday it was time to pack-up and come home to Brooklyn. On the L.I.E., Mr. Markowitz and his wife traveled down an empty New York-bound lane in their 2000 Toyota Avalon.
—John Koblin