By Kit Dillon 10/12/12 12:38pm

In the Rezone

Goodbye desolation, hello development. (Flickr)

The SPURA Has Landed: City Council Approves 47-Year-Old Urban Renewal Project

Yesterday, in a unanimous vote 47 years in the making, the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area has finally been approved by the City Council. SPURA, that massive parcel of barren (or in City Council speak, “under-developed”) city-owned land in Lower Manhattan, will now become a 1.65 million square foot mixed-use development. It’s a change that, according to the project’s backers, will create 1,000 housing units, 1,000 permanent jobs and 5,000 construction jobs. Read More

By Kit Dillon 2:52pm

In the Rezone

The city's plan. (NYC EDC)

The Wong Plan: Wok & Roll Founder Wants to Make SPURA 100 Percent Affordable, Build Giant Bus Depot

For more than four decades, Lower East Siders have been fighting to redevelop the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area, more commonly known by the (fittingly) ominous acronym SPURA. Just this year a breakthrough came, but another fight has ensued over the specifics of the plan. A grassroots citizen coalition wants the project devoted entirely to affordable housing, contrary to the city’s more market-driven mixed-income approach.

Could their salvation come in the form of the founder of the ubiquitous Chinese fast food chain Wok & Roll, an institution more at home in the food courts and airports of middle America than the streets of downtown? Read More