New Developments
The city approved Gregg Singer's plan to convert a former Alphabet City public school into a college dormitory. The landmarked building aka P.S. 64 is locateded at 605 East 9th Street. The Department of Buildings approved Singer's plan exam for the conversion.
The city's last Office Depot will shut its doors near Times Square at the end of the year.
Manhattan building owners keep building even taller buildings. The trick is to bring record height skyscrapers with the minimum of big chunks of useless hidden space. The Bank of America tower at 1111 Avenue of the Americas, which is 1,200 tall feet has 430 feet of non-occupiable height, making it third among the world's largest chunks of unusable space. The New York Times Tower at 620 Eighth Avenue, ranked sixth in the world, holds 325 feet of useless space atop its 1,046 feet.
The Metropolitan College of New York, is on the search to relocate its Hudson Square campus, and is looking at 110,000-plus-square-foot office condo at 40 Rector Street.
Lam Generation, a hotel development and ownership company and offshoot of hotelier John Lam's the Lam Group, has revealed a first look at the 39-story Renaissance hotel planned to replace the garage that was formerly home to a Chelsea flea market for 20 years.
Sam Chang borrowed nearly $42 million in loans for his 35-story Holiday Inn project in Midtown West a Dallas, Texas-based Bank and then proceeded to pay off $11.4 million to the New York Community Bank. The 85,000-square-foot hotel at 585-587 Eighth Avenue near 39th Street is to hold 271 rooms.
Thor Equities has refinanced a block-long retail condominium at the Carlton House, which it purchased from Extell Development for $277 million. Morgan Stanley has issued a $175 million first mortgage on the retail space at 680 Madison Avenue.
Eliot Spitzer is planning to build a hotel with a retail component on the Hudson Yards development site that his firm purchased last year for $88 million.
Thor Equities purchased full control of a $25 million commercial condominium at 88 Greenwich Street, after purchasing the remaining 50 percent stake in the property from a Development firm for about $12.5 million.
Vornado Realty Trust is now considering reviving plans to demolish the Hotel Pennsylvania and construct a 3 million-square-foot office tower due to strong demand from prospective office tenants.
Work has resumed atop the seven-story podium base of Larry Silverstein's 3 World Trade Center, though a full construction loan for the developer has not yet come through. Silverstein's recent agreement with the Port Authority allows him to immediately tap $50 million of a total of $159 million in insurance proceeds, moving construction past the eight stories at which the planned 80-story tower currently stands. The remainder of the funds is currently held in a reserve fund.
A pair of retired Italian soccer stars seems to have plans to develop a hotel at the corner of Hudson and Canal streets.
Real estate investors have secured the funds to complete their acquisition of the leasehold position in the iconic Mobil Building. Meridian Capital Group and Eastdil Secured arranged a $700 million loan for the 1.8 million-square-foot property at 150 East 42nd Street. The deal is one of the biggest financings of the year.
