New Developments
The planned performing-arts center at the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan has stiff competition for funds. The $469 million dollar project now sits in limbo while the new Mayor, Bill de Blasio, comes to a decision about the future of the planned center.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey board of commissioners are fighting over subsidies for 3 World Trade Center, the 80-story, $2.3 billion tower in the Financial District. The project is currently stalled. Developer Larry Silverstein and Port Authority’s Vice Chair are pushing for the subsidies that they said would allow for construction on the 16-acre site to be completed. The plan would provide as much as $1.2 billion in construction loans.
Claren Road Asset Management will take the top floor of 51 Astor Place. The 25,401-square-foot space was asking a rent of $118 per square foot, a record for Midtown South. This was likely the highest price per-square-foot deal struck in the neighborhood.
Lily Realty and Crunch gym reached a settlement that will result in the fitness franchise not occupying the commercial space at 140 Franklin Street in Tribeca. The building’s board of managers filed a $5 million lawsuit to halt the pending lease agreement between Crunch and the landlord. The board claimed that the lease would violate the condo bylaws, condo declaration and city zoning laws. After the settlement, Lily Realty said it would not rent the space to Crunch, which sought to take 19,000 square feet on the ground floor and lower level.
In two years time an area of Manhattan’s Far West Side, from 51st to 52nd Street on 11th Avenue, will be greatly improved by the arrival of a new $54 million home of the Irish Arts Center which is close to its present location.
Less than a year after moving into its 100,000-square-foot office space, Facebook is adding 60,000 square feet to its Midtown South office.
The owner of the New Yorker Hotel is expanding, renovating and rebranding the aging icon in anticipation of a boost in business when nearby Hudson Yards is completed. A subsidiary of the Unification Church is partnering with Wyndham Hotel & Resorts to substantially increase the number of rooms at 481 Eighth Avenue, which is located between West 34th and West 35th streets. Though plans have not been finalized, the room count at the New Yorker will reportedly go from 912 to 1,500 keys.
Morris Adjmi is designing a new art gallery at 540-544 West 26th Street. Located between the High Line and Eleventh Avenue this 135-foot-tall building, developed by real estate private equity firm Savanna Fund, will spread across roughly 129,125 square feet and house gallery space on the first and second floors.
The city is mulling over a possible landmark designation for a parking garage on the Upper East Side that would make it the 129th protected site in the neighborhood.
Kevin Maloney and Michael Stern are behind what’s slated to become one of the tallest residential towers in the city — an ultra-skinny, 1,350-foot hotel and condominium tower at 111 West 57th Street next to the Steinway Building.
Brookfield Properties’ $4.5 billion Manhattan West project and the Department of Housing and Preservation’s all-affordable housing complex in Harlem are among the latest projects to receive a new batch of renderings.
Plans were filed to develop a new 21-story building with 95,355 square feet in the Hudson Yards district. The hotel would appear to cater to out-of-towners with 240 hotel rooms. A 4,150-square-foot, four-story building currently sits on the site, located at 432-434 West 31st Street at Dyer Avenue.
Hakimian Property has just filed plans to build a mixed-use structure on the site of a Mobile gas station in the East Village, which the development firm picked up for $7 million a few years back. The nine-story building will be designed by Rotwein & Blake Associated Architects.
Time Inc. is in discussions to sign a lease at the office building at 2 Brookfield Place, also known as 225 Liberty Street, in Battery Park City. The publishing giant behind Sports Illustrated, Entertainment Weekly and Time magazine is among several media companies heading Downtown. The Village Voice, American Media and Condé Nast are among those that have already made the move.
Discussions about the possible sale of 1.6 million square feet of air rights connected to the Hudson River Park, was placed on hold until a recent appointment of City Planning Commission Chair Carl Weisbrod, kicks off next week.
Sam Chang has passed up the opportunity to build a hotel on the site of a five-story commercial building in Lower Manhattan. Chang sold the property to Rhode Island-based Magna Hospitality Group for $44.3 million, and subsequently filed plans to demolish it.
City Council member Mark Levine has proposed a public-private partnership that would revive the former Metro Theater site in the Upper West Side, as a community arts space. The four-story, 11,000-square-foot landmarked structure at 2626 Broadway, between West 99th and West 100th streets, was on the way to become an Alamo Drafthouse dinner-and-a-movie multiplex.
The Boston-based Rockpoint Group and its operating partner Highgate Holdings will develop a vacant lot in the Meatpacking District on land that is leased for 99 years by Meilman Family Real Estate.
Muss Development bought a retail condo at Toll Brothers’ high-end condominium building, the Touraine, for $12 million. European café chain Le Pain Quotidien already inked a 15-year lease in the 5,000-square-foot space, located at 865 Lexington Avenue at East 65th Street.
The Landmarks Preservation Commission rejected a proposal by the Church of St. Luke in the Fields to construct a new building in the West Village. The proposal is to build a 15-story, 153-foot-tall tower atop a parking lot at 487 Hudson Street. A plot of land delineated by Hudson, Barrow, Christopher and Greenwich streets has garnered a lot of opposition from local elected officials and residents. At the public meeting, LPC asked that the plan be revised, citing concerns about the scale of the project and the materials that would be used.
A Cheslea office building that once housed a much maligned neighborhood club, and was expected to get up to $90 million in a sale, has changed hands.
Fairway Market is sticking to its strategy of opening up to 300 new stores across the country in the coming years to reverse poor earnings and investor ire that has bubbled up since the company went public in April 2013. The shop’s next two locations, on Long Island and on Manhattan’s far West Side, are slated to open this year.
Radio Shack is planning to shutter more than 1,000 of its U.S. stores that aren’t meeting expectations, a move that might include outlets in New York City. The retailer suffered a loss in sales in the fourth quarter of $63.3 million, did not disclose which stores would close. The decision will see the closing of around 25% of the store’s outlets will be based on location, demographics, lease duration and financial performance.
Commercial space at the Related Companies’ Hudson Yards megadevelopment is getting scooped up at a swift clip. Technology firm SAP, leather retailer Coach and cosmetics brand L’Oréal are among the tenants to lease space at the 1.7 million-square-foot south tower. Roughly 300,000 square feet remains there. Meanwhile, 900,000 square feet is available at the 2.6 million-square-foot north tower, which is slated to house Time Warner Inc. after a deal is finalized.
Bill Rudin, CEO of Rudin Management, is doing a study on redeveloping 55 Broad Street in Lower Manhattan. Tentative plans call for constructing a 53-story mixed-use property in place of the 35-story office building there now. The site would grow to nearly double the height, 742 feet from 402 feet. In addition to the office component, there would be luxury apartments and retail space.
Developers are poised to cash in on a citywide grab for space to house preschool programs that Mayor Bill de Blasio is pushing the city to fund. Brokers have seen demand grow for community-facility spaces, which developers reserve for public use on the lower floors of buildings in return for permission to build taller towers.
Stonehenge Partners signed a lease with Boutique Fitness Experience (BFX) Studio, is a high-end, high-concept personal fitness as its first retail tenant at the newly-constructed 555 Sixth Avenue.
The keys to a Greenwich Village building that formerly housed a state agency are now in the hands of the city, which plans to build a new middle school on the site. The School Construction Authority reportedly obtained control of the building at 75 Morton Street earlier this week and will construct an 800-seat facility.
Developer Sam Chang is planning to bring a 594-room hotel to the parking garage site at 346-354 West 40th Street that he purchased for $26.3 million in December. Gene Kaufman, is architect on the 35-story hotel project between Eighth and Ninth avenues. The units will be no larger than 300 square feet each.
Bookstore owners are increasingly leaving Manhattan amid soaring rents. Sarah McNally, owner of McNally Jackson at 52 Prince Street, sought a second location but was priced out of the market.
Columbia University Medical Center filed building permits for the $34.4 million expansion of the Russ Berrie Medical Science Pavilion, allowing for the construction of a 65,000-square-foot nursing school on an adjacent corner parking lot in Washington Heights.
