The developers of Astoria Cove have a clever technique of trying to head off any more community demands for affordable housing. In recent weeks, the 1,700-unit development has faced fierce community opposition, even after agreeing to slightly up the affordable portion to meet the standard 80/20 ratio that is typically used as the threshold for financial subsidy, tax breaks or the right to build bigger. So now the developers, led by Alma Realty, are proposing writing mandatory rather than voluntary inclusionary zoning into their deal with the city, in exchange for the right to build bigger, according to Crain’s. But the potential deal, though presented as cutting edge, sounds boilerplate rather than revolutionary.
It doesn’t look like Pastis will be returning to its Ninth Avenue spot after all, The Village Voice reports. Despite insisting that a major building renovation would not force the neighborhood staple to permanently relocate, Keith McNally’s people now confess that, “it doesn’t look like Pastis will go back into that building (9 Ninth Avenue).” The restaurant is the last in a series of high-end, destination eateries that have been pushed out of the spaces and neighborhoods they’ve helped transform, including Union Square Cafe and Mesa Grill. Wylie Dufrenses’s WD~50 was also booted.
And there’s no place like home, as Google can attest. Google is expanding within its own building at 111 Eighth Avenue, Crain’s reports, with plans to snap up some additional 500,000 square feet in the building it owns as tenants’ leases expire and/or Google pays them to go elsewhere. The internet giant has also expanded into Chelsea Market in recent years.
Hey, living alone can be nice, for enormous companies and private citizens alike. As Brick Underground points out in a post decoding some of the most common apartment share terms found on Craigslist, finding a roommate you won’t hate is a tricky business, requiring some highly complicated codes and signals. Better yet, maybe you should avoid anyone who uses “don’t bring the party home” or “no drama” altogether.
It’s summer! And who doesn’t want to work with a glass of wine in hand during the summer? For those with flexible enough jobs where they can flee the office, DNAInfo offers a helpful map of cafes where you can booze it up whilst working. Among them, Cedar Local, a FiDi bar that offers “new money” and “old money” cocktails.
