By Matt Chaban 5/30 6:22pm

Under Development

15 Photos

Hunting for Affordable Housing

At Least One Huge Housing Development Is Still on Track: Hunters Point South Will Break Ground This Fall

Yesterday, The Journal (rightly) complained the lack of progress at two major affordable housing projects, Hudson Yards and Willets Point. This got The Observer wondering about another, though: whatever happened to Hunters Point South, which was approved the same day almost four years ago as the Willets Point project.

Things are moving along quite nicely, it turns out.

It may seem as though there has been limited tangible progress since Related Companies was tapped to develop the project in February of last year, but that is because most of the work is being done below the surface—with on the banks of the East River and the banks of housing finance. Read More

By Matt Chaban 5/17 6:09pm

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Disconcertingly disconnected. (Bing Maps)

The Real Problem With Willets Point

A reader sends along this thoughtful critique of the problems inherent in the latest plans for Willets Point:

What a horrible idea. A parking lot and a mall? That neighborhood is a mess already, though. Just a few hundred feet from the bay in one direction and Flushing Meadows in the other, and they’re both nearly impossible to access. It should be a wonderful spot to hang out before a ballgame, and instead it’s just a tangle of highways. Thank you, Robert Moses.

It’s a very interesting point, and perhaps points to a better way forward for this forlorn corner of the city. Read More

By Matt Chaban 5/17 11:17am

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Citi Field’s Suicide Squeeze! Redone Willets Point Will Bracket Stadium With Huge Malls

It may be a strike for the mayor, but Steve Ross and Fred Wilpon have scored big time with the latest Willets Point do-over.

It was revealed earlier this month that after a year of weighing competing proposals, the city had selected the Related Companies and Sterling Equities to redevelop the Iron Triangle, albeit in vastly revised form. Housing and other development would be put off in favor of a large mall.

Make that two malls, surrounding the new-ish throwback stadium, a veritable retail double play. Read More

By Matt Chaban 5/02 5:02pm

manifest destiny east

From muck to mall. (Getty)

Related and Wilpons Win Willets Point, Plan Mall [Update: Defendents 'Ecstatic' City Abandoning Eminent Domain]

Willets Point has long been one of the most neglected corners of the city, famously appearing in The Great Gatsby as “the valley of ashes.” The Bloomberg administration has been working for years to redevelop the 62-acre Iron Triangle, long home to auto body shops and a handful of heavy industries nestled between the Mets stadia and downtown Flushing.

Today, City Hall took a step toward spiffing up the site, if not quite in the direction it had hoped.

The administration withdrew its eminent domain case, known as a determination of findings, from state appellate court, halting takeover proceedings against a handful of holdout property owners in the area. This paves the way for the project to move forward, albeit in an altered form from the 2008 rezoning, which called for a mixed-use development on the site.

According to people familiar with the situation, the city is close to reaching a deal with the Related Companies and Sterling Equities to build a mall on the site. The exact details are still being worked out, and an official announcement is expected in the coming weeks. Read More

By Matt Chaban 4/25 4:52pm

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Tourist attractions.

The Secret to the City’s Tourism Boom? Developing Countries (and Their Deep Pockets)

Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg announced that that the city would be raking in $70 billion from tourists four years from now, as the administration and NYC & Company continue to ramp up tourism to the city. Spending last year amounted to $32.5 billion, and $48.5 billion in economic impact, from a record 50.5 million tourists.

This got The Observer thinking, and, as often happens when we get to thinking, we we got to worrying.

At current rates, wouldn’t it take, given diminishing returns, another 25 million tourists or so to reach the target spending levels by 2015? Think Times Square and the Brooklyn Bridge are bad now? Imagine them 50 percent more crowded. Oh, the humanity. (There would certainly be a lot of humanity around.)

But it turns out we had it backwards. This is not a case of diminishing returns but compounding ones. Read More

By Matt Chaban 4/18 8:40am

Machers

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Hollywood Along the Hudson: Can Doug Steiner Turn the City’s Largest Film Studios Into an Urban Real Estate Empire?

“People said we were crazy to build in Brooklyn, no one would ever come to Brooklyn,” Doug Steiner said from the rooftop terrace of his biggest development in the borough. The Jersey-born builder was wearing his usual polo shirt and jeans, comfortable in the unseasonably warm weather in late February, the sun glinting off his clean-shaven head. “In those days, there were wild dogs running in the streets,” Mr. Steiner added for effect.

“But look at these views,” he continued, pointing out across Wallabout Bay and the span of the East River beyond. “You’ve got the gritty industrial underbelly of the city in the foreground, the financial capital of the world in the background.” One World Trade Center and the Empire State Building bookended the panorama.

It was 1999 when Doug Steiner brought the family development business to Brooklyn. As he and so many other fortune seekers have since proved, the decision was anything but crazy. But it was not condos or artists lofts that Mr. Steiner was selling. He was in pictures.

Two weeks ago, with the mayor standing just in front of him at the podium, Mr. Steiner opened five new sound stages at his eponymous Steiner Studios inside the sprawling Brooklyn Navy Yards, bringing the total to 15. That is halfway to the ultimate goal of 32 and, at 50 acres, the largest American film production facilities outside of Hollywood—behind Warner Brothers and Paramount, and rivaling the Walt Disney and CBS backlots. Read More

By Susan Chin and Paul Herzan 4/16 12:00pm

Cabbing Fever

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The Taxi of Tomorrow Is Great, But New York Needs More Design Thinking

The following is an op-ed by Susan Chin, executive director for the Design Trust for Public Space, and Paul Herzan, chair of the board of the Cooper-Hewitt. The trust hosted an exhibition at the museum that helped bring the city its new New York-only taxis.

The considerable buzz around the unveiling of the Taxi of Tomorrow prototype at the 2012 New York International Auto Show reflects not only the ownership that the people of New York City feel for “their car,” but also demonstrates a passionate concern many New Yorkers have for the design of their city and public space.  What makes the Taxi of Tomorrow so significant for New York as its first purpose-built cab is the many improvements for passenger and driver, achieved through an unlikely partnership between the taxi community and the design community—made possible by the Design Trust for Public Space and Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum joining forces with NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission and Nissan.

The daunting halo of complexity (“it will never happen”) of the Taxi of Tomorrow project demonstrates the power of design in our city to drive change. Read More

By The Editors 4/10 7:17pm

opinion

Preserve Buildings, Not Districts

The sad saga of the old Pennsylvania Station is nearly a half-century old, but its legacy continues—and rightly so. Every New Yorker should know this tale of woe, how an extraordinary piece of architecture was destroyed in the early 1960s to make way for an undistinguished office tower and sports arena.

The city’s landmarks preservation movement came about because of what happened to the old Penn Station. In the decades since, beautiful buildings have been spared the ravages of “progress” and entire blocks have been preserved thanks to the landmarking process.

The Bloomberg Administration has expanded on these preservation efforts by increasing the number of historic districts citywide from 64 to 107. Now, as the administration nears its end times, it wants to add or expand eight districts, which would affect more than 3,000 buildings.

Preservation of historic buildings clearly is important. Read More