Major Developments
Biden signed into law a bipartisan $1 trillion bill aimed at rebuilding the country’s aging infrastructure.Funding will be available for the extension of the Second Avenue subway line, the revitalization of the Port Authority bus terminal, upgrading the subway’s signals and improving trip times, and bridge and road upgrades for Long Island and Westchester.
Amtrak’s high-speed rail proposals for the Northeast corridor are slated to receive more than $6.5 billion for capital renewal backlog projects, as well as $3.6 billion for intercity passenger rail grants. JFK International Airport could get $295 million and LaGuardia Airport $150 million for upgrades and repairs. The state may see $90 billion for water infrastructure upgrades and $100 million for the state to expand and subsidize broadband coverage. The MTA is expected to receive more than $10 billion in the bill.
Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a scaled-down version plan for Penn Station redevelopment that includes 10 new towers and a terminal to the south of Penn. Hochul’s plan reduces the planned development by 1.4 million square feet, a 7% reduction. The plan also includes 1,800 residential units, with 540 affordable.
Most sites are controlled by Vornado Realty Trust. The plan is delaying the new terminal, which requires the demolition of 50-plus properties on West 31st Street to make way for eight new tracks. The governor indicated that those properties will still need to be acquired when the state moves forward with the expansion. Eight new tracks are planned to the south of the station and would connect to the long-delayed Gateway Tunnel.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams will become the city’s 110th mayor.
Short-term rental provider Sonder signed on to the planned 363-room hotel at 25 West 34th Street in a 15-year deal.
An appeals court upheld the city’s key pandemic-era protection that bar landlords from pursuing lease-breaking tenants personal assets of owners or guarantors whose restaurants or retail businesses had defaulted on their leases, during the first six months of the pandemic.
In a separate challenge by other commercial landlords, a federal court ruled in October that the city law could be challenged under the U.S. Constitution’s contracts clause, which bars states from passing laws that interfere with contract obligations.
Gov. Kathy Hochul is looking to get the Second Avenue Subway project back on track. The project’s next phase is ready but they still need to get approvals.
The City Council’s Committee on Land Use voted for a zoning text amendment that will require developers to obtain a special permit before building a hotel or expanding an existing one by 20% or more. A few modifications were made, so it will need to be reviewed by the City Planning Commission before heading to a full City Council vote.
Amazon is on a buying and leasing spree. They have expanded its portfolio of warehouse, distribution, data center and last-mile properties to more than 410 million square feet. In the past few months, Amazon has spent heavily to acquire office campuses, development sites and other vacant land for potential redevelopment into warehouses and distribution centers.
The City Planning Commission voted to allow Open Restaurants, and the sheds that come with the program, to become permanent. The zoning text amendment wipes out geographic restrictions on sidewalk cafes in the city. To be eligible for a sidewalk café, restaurants would need to meet physical criteria, such as “clear path” requirements, including ensuring that tables and chairs are at appropriate distances from fire hydrants and neighboring businesses.
Open Restaurants has saved more than 100,000 industry jobs and countless small businesses from financial collapse.
The Durst Organization is suing the MTA over 3 vacant lots at 1800, 1801 and 1815 Park Avenue that are in a Special Transit Land Use District, which requires developers to first get certified by the MTA and the city’s Planning Commission as to whether transit easements are needed to build. The MTA's slow decision-making, lack of diligence, changing stances and failure to cooperate have cost the company money and deprived it of its rights to use the properties.
REIT’s Manhattan office portfolio was 84.5% leased at the end of the third quarter, down 2.4 percentage points from a year ago, and down 5.1 percentage points from the 2019 level.
Rolex Realty Corporation filed plans with the New York City Department of Buildings to construct an office building at 665 Fifth Avenue. The building is expected to be about 199,000 square feet.
Weill Cornell Medical College filed plans for a 221-unit building on the Upper East Side, almost three years after buying the development site from a local church. The plans filed detail a 128,000-square-foot building at 1393 York Avenue, only a few blocks away from the school’s 1300 York Avenue campus.
22 Battery Place, a landmarked three-story building and clocktower on a century-old jetty facing the Statue of Liberty, faces litigation from the investors who want their $16.5 million back from the failed redevelopment project of a historic pier.
