Chelsea loft on offer from Halstead.

It’s Springtime in New York again—that short slice of heaven squeezed between the long cold winter and the long hot summer—and the real estate market appears to be sprouting green shoots in celebration.  For real this time. The kind of growth that the professionals seem to think can really last. That’s certainly the take that Diane Ramirez, president and co-founder of Halstead Property, shared in a recent interview. And she has some solid evidence to back that up, unmistakable trends she has spotted that indicate a kind of vigor in the market that is sustainable. The market, she posits, has become unfrozen, people are feeling less stuck, and rather than sitting tight with what they’ve got, they’re upsizing, downsizing, and just generally moving on with their lives. “That,” she insightfully says, “is what real estate is all about.”

And it is just that movement, that loosening up, that could point to a way out of the Manhattan market’s biggest quandary, the shortage of inventory. Sure, there are some developments in the pipeline, but people moving in and out create a more dynamic market. In the meantime, Halstead, the inventor of the storefront real estate office in Manhattan, continues to grow its own green shoots, with new offices sprouting up in Washington Heights and another planned for Southampton.

We chatted with Ms. Ramirez, a 35-year veteran of the business and grandmother of five who has herself dabbled in development, about the state of the market, and why she is feeling bullish this spring.

Diane Ramirez.

Q: What’s your take on Manhattan’s real estate market now? Everyone seems to feel that it is really heating up.

A: The market cannot get any hotter than it has been. The last six months, everyone you speak to is breathless, the agents, the managers. The market is very hot.

Q: Has it flipped from being a buyers’ market back to the sellers?

A: It is a sellers’ market, but you still must be properly priced. The sky is not the limit. We are starting to push the market for sellers more, but if you go out of the realm of reality, you lose your entrée into the market. And then people remember your property as being over-priced.

But if you are well-priced, at most price points, mostly two bedrooms and up, you are going to get multiple bids.

Q:  If buyers are getting priced out of Manhattan, where can they go? Brooklyn?

A:  Brooklyn is very hot. In some instances they are seeing Manhattan-like prices.

We just opened an office in Washington Heights. In Washington Heights and Hudson Heights, prices are very attractive, and it’s beautiful up there. Water views, pre-war buildings.

We picked up Stein-Perry, a very well-respected firm in Washington Heights. Gus Perry, who heads up that firm, knows the area very well. We love growing with someone who is well known in the community. We’re interested in the Upper West Side, all the way up to the Bronx. And we remain committed to Harlem as well.

Q: Do you have any other expansion plans?

A: We have also expanded in the Hamptons. We are in East Hampton and we will open in Southampton.  Our group is very strategic.

Q: What is your advice to buyers right now? 

A:  If you are looking to buy, get in there, and if you see something you like, don’t hesitate. The market is truly back. We are not seeing huge spikes, but it is starting to rise. Go for it aggressively. If you lose one, it will likely be more expensive next time around. The trend is that prices are steadily rising. I think that’s going to continue for a couple of years. Don’t try to time the market. Any area that touches Manhattan and is well served by transportation is bound to rise.

Q: What is your personal approach to real estate?  Where do you live, for instance?

A:  I live on the Upper East Side now. I’ve been back here for five years. I love change and love to try new neighborhoods. It’s nice to live in the 60s. My husband and I and the children are all settled nearby. We take in everything the city has to offer. Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall. Culturally, it can’t be beat. I find New York very healthy. It’s so diverse.

Before this, I was downtown. We tried FiDi. And before that I tried Tribeca. I hadn’t experienced living in a loft, so I wanted to try that. We bought the top floor and the air rights, and then my son and I did a joint venture where we built two apartments. Then we bought a garage on Greenwich and Hubert and put plans together for a seven-story building. We did not end up building it, but we sold the plans. They built it exactly to our specifications. My son bought  a fabulous townhouse in the 30s. And my daughter is not too far away in Connecticut. We’ve got five wonderful grandchildren altogether.

Q: Real estate professionals talk about how little inventory there is in the city. Is there anything in the pipeline that is going to change that?

A:  There is nothing that is going to open the floodgates, but new development is starting to come online.

But more significantly, people are really getting on with their lives, and that is where the break in the inventory is going to happen. People have been holding tight for a while, and staying put. Now they are moving on with their lives, and that is what real estate is all about. People going from having two to three bedrooms, having another child, or downsizing after the kids leave. Getting stuck is not healthy. It’s refreshing what’s going on now. We are seeing more movement in the resale market and we are returning to a much more normal ebb and flow.

We will still have tight inventory. Inventory is going to be a problem, but it’s going to get a little better. This is where I differ from some of my colleagues.

Q: Who is buying these days? 

A:  Everyone is thinking real estate again. First-time buyers, young people coming to the city. People whose children have left home are moving into the city, and families still want to be here. Foreigners still know that New York City is a great place to be.

It is unlike Connecticut and New Jersey, where we also have offices. There you tend to see one kind of buyer. Here it is much more diverse.

Another thing that we are seeing is that people are starting to look again for fixer-uppers, whereas before everyone wanted only finished apartments that needed no work. The fact that people are looking for fixer-uppers, where they can make their own dream home, is another sign of optimism and a healthy market.

jallon@observer.com

Right-sized on Broadway. (DCP)

Back in 2007, in order to win his vote for Columbia's contentious Manhattanville rezoning, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer got the city to agree to rezone the blocks north of the new 17-acre campus as well, a stanch against over development. Today, the borough president gets to vote on the rezoning he requested for West Harlem, and he is touting it as a triumph of community planning.

"This rezoning reflects the input of thousands of stakeholders in West Harlem and five years of work toward crafting a community-based planning consensus that could be a model for the rest of our City," Mr. Stringer said in an email. "It is a promise kept to the residents of West Harlem—and a proud moment for all who are involved."

Like many parts of the city, the zoning has not been updated since 1961. The Department of City Planning has created, through a multi-year consultation with the community, a contextual zoning package that will largely maintain the same density of development in the neighborhood while imposing new height limits and street wall requirements to ensure that sliver buildings and other uncharacteristic buildings cannot be built.

The rezoning covers 90 blocks stretching from 126th Street up to 155th Street, running west from Edgecombe, Bradhurt, Amsterdam and St. Nicholas avenues to the river. Excluded from this area is the the campuses of City College and Columbia's Manhattanville project, which is south of 133rd Street.

West of Broadway, the buildings are the biggest, rising to 105 feet on the side streets and 120 feet on the avenues, but buildings have a required setback between 60 and 85 feet. They must now be built up to the sidewalk, as is the case in most of Manhattan, thus presenting developers from stepping back to build taller towers. East of Broadway, the same street wall requirements exist, though the buildings are lower, ranging from height limits of 70 to 80 feet, with setbacks between 40 and 60 feet. This is meant to reflect the rowhouse and walk-up scale of the area.

"This historic undertaking will protect the distinctive residential character of this neighborhood for decades to come," Mr. Stringer said.

Special districts have been carved out for 145th Street, the area's main commercial thoroughfare, and a pocket of manufacturing around 126th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. Along 145th Street, a few select sites have been upzoned, to provide for new development, which will be part of the city's inclusionary housing program, which means that in exchange for a bonus to build bigger, developers must make 20 percent of their units affordable. These sites could rise as high as 170 feet with the inclusion of the affordable housing.

The 126th Street area had been traditionally used for manufacturing, but the plan calls for a new mixed use district that would allow housing, commercial and light manufacturing uses to coexist. This is not unlike the mix of uses just across the street in Columbia's new campus.

"We feel very comfortable that this plan will protect the neighborhood from some of the development we've seen elsewhere in the city," Reverend Georgiette Morgan-Thomas, chair of the local community board, told The Observer. She pointed to two projects in particular, Aerial East and Aerial West, hulking towers developed around 100th Street by Extell Development as the kind of egregious development the community wanted to avoid.

The board spent three years developing a model for the rezoning with the help of the Department of City Planning and the borough president. "Scott and City Planning have done an extraordinary job working with the community to craft this plan," Ms. Morgan-Thomas said.

"It's always a great place to be to know you've done something for the community, something that will truly protect it," she added. "When we're all gone, the zoning will still be in place, along with the buildings as they've always been."

And you thought the High Line looked crazy. (Columbia)

This gives a whole new meaning to "in the heights."

Columbia University Medical Center has just announced that Diller Scofidio + Renfro will be designing a new 14-story medical building on Haven Avenue between 171st and 172nd streets that will be home to high-tech class facilities for all four CUMC colleges as well as the biomedical program within Columbia University's college of art and science.

The university tapped DS+R, along with Gensler, to create a new landmark for the medical center, one that will be visible from both the George Washington Bridge and Riverside Park.“The new building will have the best possible design that is attractive, comfortable, and appropriate for the intense kind of education that our students receive,” Dr. P. Roy Vagelos, a 1954 graduate of the school and former CEO of Merck, said in a release.

This is DS+R's latest project in the city, following on the huge successes of the High Line and Lincoln Center, as well as their early interior for Brasserie. It will also be the first vertical project for the firm, which tends to focus on cultural and institutional work, like museums and performance centers. This is not their first project for Columbia, however—the firm is also designing a new business school building named at Henry Kravis at the university's new Manhattanville campus.

“The new Medical and Graduate Education Building will be the social and academic anchor of the CUMC campus,” Elizabeth Diller said. “Spaces for education and socializing are intertwined to encourage new forms of collaborative learning among students and faculty.

This can be seen in the signature design feature, an exposed glass stack on the southern side of the building the designers call "the study cascade." Like the rest of Columbia's new buildings—many of which employ top designers in the field, like Steven Holl's nearby athletic center in Inwoof—the project will be sustainable, aiming for LEED Gold status. It is set to begin construction in 2013

Things ain't looking up in da Heights. (Bridge and Tunnel Club)

The folks in upper Manhattan have been voicing their concerns lately: residents of West Harlem can't stand dog doodoo and residents of Washington Heights and Inwood are protesting the lack of affordable housing options. A group of residents and community gathered over the weekend to speak out against Department of Housing and Preservation neglect, DNAInfo reports.

The residents called for more affordable housing in the neighborhoods, citing that only 139 of the 43,922 new units and 1,363 of the 85,299 preserved units under Bloomberg's administration have been in either Washington Heights or Inwood.

Community leaders pointed out that their residents have the greatest need, but the least attention.

HPD Spokesman Eric Bederman spoke to DNAInfo, telling them that "the department was united with the community in its fight but limited in its resources." He further noted that construction is a matter of resources, opportunity, and history:

HPD does not own any land in Community Board 12’s district, he noted.

The housing stock in CB 12 largely remained in the hands of landlords and tenants during the 1970s and 1980s when residents were fleeing the city, while in Harlem — in community boards 9, 10 and 11 — the city was able to purchase significant numbers of properties.

Much of the new construction throughout areas like Harlem, the South Bronx or East Brooklyn, is derived from land acquired through tax foreclosure during that time.

If it isn't HPD, then it is Columbia University.

mewing@observer.com

1642 Madison Avenue, center.

While new development activity is still sluggish in most parts of the country—including throughout the five boroughs—at least one area of Manhattan is seeing several new deals that suggest a construction boom may be in the cards.

To be sure, at least six separate development sites throughout Harlem and Washington Heights have gone into contract since May for a total of nearly 100,000 buildable square feet, brokers told The Observer.

Those development sites include 1642 Madison Avenue; 166 East 100^th Street; 77 East 110^th Street; 142 West 131^st Street; 446-48 West 167^th Street; and 492 St. Nicholas Avenue. Although more specific numbers were not immediately available yesterday, executives at Ariel Property Advisors, the group who inked those transactions, said that through all of 2010 a total of just 26 development sites traded hands in the same area.

“We’re seeing a substantial increase in bidding activity for development sites in Northern Manhattan compared to a year ago,” Ariel Property Advisors’ Shimon Shkury said. “Prices are attractive and buyers are seeking to build rental or condominium developments because the fundamentals for these projects have remained strong.”

jsederstrom@observer.com

A while back, Curbed got wind of an outrageous-looking plan for a complex of four towers ranging in size from 23 to 42 stories. Like our blogging pals, The Observer figured this was a pie-in-the-sky leftover from the last real estate boom--Extell's Aerial towers on the Upper West Side come to mind. After all, who would live in a 40-story penthouse north of 100th Street, let alone 190th Street?

And developer Quadriad couldn't even get the neighborhood right, calling this the "Inwood Project" on its Web site, with a plan date of a year ago. It must just be an outdated napkin sketch, right?

Well, it looks like Quadriad is serious about its Washington Heights plans, having now made numerous presentations to the community board. The developer even says it has the money to build the project, and it will only need a rezoning. That could be a difficult proposition, though. The project promises considerable affordable housing, but the price point is more than most Washington Heights locals could afford.

This is not unlike a similar plan Quadriad tried to tackle on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, where it sought a 20-story tower on the popular BroBo thoroughfare. The community board there put up stiff opposition, and the developer wound up building an as-of-right five-story building instead. So has Quadriad learned its lesson this time around?

mchaban@observer.com

Her campaign is just out with a release on the matter, and her latest mailer (designed by Michael Oliva) says on the front that "she has spent her life making sure people are treated with fairness no matter their background." The back of the lit lists "Pass Marriage Equality" as one of her top four priorities.

In the release, Lewis says that she has "no problem with any religious entity or organization disregarding or opposing marriage between same gender people...What I do not support is a system that enables these beliefs to determine our laws."

This is something of odd tack for Lewis, since both of her opponents, Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat, who has been endorsed by most of the political establishment, including Council speaker Christine Quinn, and district leader Mark Levine, both favor marriage equality.

Says Lewis, they "just seem less enthused about their support for equal rights."

The district used to cover the Upper West Side, but got pushed up the island into the more Dominican neighborhood of Washington Heights in 2002 by Republicans who wanted to get rid of Schneiderman.

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That's just slightly more than the $16 million Pinnacle paid for the rentals in 2004, when, during an epic buying spree backed by private equity, the firm bought thousands of  low-income units across Upper Manhattan. Pinnacle later came under a barrage of criticism, and investigation, for using unsavory tactics to push out existing renters to make way for higher-paying tenants.

The new owner's attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The two six-story buildings -- 839 and 845 Riverside Drive -- together hold about 100 apartments.

drubinstein@observer.com

Of course, the developer gets something out of this, too – in this case, the land on which to build a 16-story residential high rise with 75 units; 20 percent of which will be affordable housing.

North Manhattan Development LLC is now in contract to buy the land from Rocky Mount Baptist Church in Washington Heights for approximately $6 million. That’s a 4,286 percent appreciation since 1980, when the church bought the spot for $140,000.

“We had no idea our church was worth that kind of money,” said Rev. Eugene Hudson in a statement. “So when the surveyor told me the news, I was elated, ecstatic, and almost speechless…I really thanked the Lord for that. He must want us to continue to do our good works.”

As part of the terms of the contract, the developers will replace the existing 5,000-square-foot church with a 15,000-square-foot house of worship on the same site, at 37-41 Hillside Avenue.

Even better, the new housing could prove a fertile ground for new congregants.

Construction should be completed in 2010.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article has been corrected. The original post misidentified the name of the developer.