New Developments
Vornado Realty Trust was selected to redevelop and expand the West Side trade show facility between 51st and 54th streets on the West Side Highway. The New York City Economic Development Corporation chose Vornado and its subsidiary Merchandise Mart Properties to expand the facility. The project is to create 355,000 square feet of trade show and conference space.
Broadway Partners, a New York-based real estate investor, bought several billion dollars worth of property in 2006 and 2007, at the height of the market, borrowing short-term debt that comes due in 2009. The company is considering selling some properties and refinancing others, in an effort to raise $200 million and buy some of its debt back at a discount before it is due in May 2009.
Plans for a new PATH station near the World Trade Center could be abandoned, and the $1.9 billion in federal funding for the project redirected, as Governor Paterson names a new executive director of the Port Authority. If the station is canceled, the federal money could be used to help finance the planned renovation of Penn Station.
The Kingsbridge Armory, once the world's largest military drill hall, is going to be turned over to a private corporation for a $310 million makeover into a massive retail center. This is intended to jumpstart the North Bronx economy.
Related Companies, Manhattan-based, won the project for the historic armory. Under Related's plan, the 575,000-square-foot site will become home to a department store, up to 35 smaller shops, a number of restaurants and a movie multiplex.
The Bloomberg administration's revised rezoning plan for Coney Island's seaside area keeps condos and time-share hotels out of the amusement area. The new plan also prevents high-rises from being built along the boardwalk of a planned amusement park and allows the district's biggest property owner, developer Joe Sitt, to erect up to 900 hotel units along the Avenue behind the park. The hotels would have to be standard or theme park-related. Sitt would have to sell the city 230,000 square feet of his property for the planned park but would be allowed to build retail, enclosed amusements and hotels on the other 220,000 square feet.
Cleanup at the six-acre contaminated site of Public Place, along the Gowanus Canal, is in progress. The Hudson Companies plan to develop 774 apartments and a park at the site, with a possible growth by 500 units if a neighboring property owner joins in. The two-acre canal-side park would join a waterfront esplanade estimated to be 70 feet wide.
More than 5% of the city
