Manhattan Residential Development

[NYC4Life]

Short tower (398 feet) but the glass facade makes up for the height. Overall, great residential building and fits well with 1st Avenue.

[brianac]

Updated On 09/08/08 at 02:57PM

UES gets new medical condominium

429 East 75th Street

By Jovana Rizzo

A new medical condominium has come to the Upper East Side.

Developers Taconic Investment Partners and ABR Partners' 30,000-square foot-building at 429 East 75th Street, between First and York avenues, is offering seven full-floor condos, including the basement, for doctors' private practices.

Three floors were added to the building, which was previously used as a garage, and it was topped off at six stories tall in August.

Hoping to attain LEED certification, the building is being renovated with an energy efficient heating and cooling system, and architects Murphy Burnham & Buttrick reused the original building materials and added green building materials, said Paul Wexler, president of Corcoran Wexler Healthcare Properties, the exclusive sales agent for the project.

Murphy Burnham & Buttrick also preserved the building's original 1930s Art Deco facade.

The seven units range from 2,200 to 5,700 square feet, with prices from $1,100 to $1,350 per square foot.

Wexler said none of the units have gone to contract yet, but an orthopedic surgeon, neurologist and radiologist have looked at spaces and are in the process of purchasing units. Each space will be constructed based on the doctors' specifications and needs, and the building will include two elevators, one large enough to fit a gurney, and a back-up power generator.

"I think most doctors prefer to own their own space," Wexler said. "Initially, it's an office, and later it can become a real estate investment. Moving forward, you can rent out portions or the entire space to other doctors."

Wexler said the benefits of creating the building as a medical community on the Upper East Side is that the doctors can refer patients to one another, and they will be in close proximity to several hospitals, including Memorial Sloan Kettering, New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Lenox Hill Hospital.

The building will be ready for move-in by the end of the year.

http://ny.therealdeal.com/articles/u...al-condominium

© 2008 The Real Deal

[brianac]

City Meets Resistance Over New Housing Plan on NYCHA Land


by Eliot Brown | September 15, 2008

HPD.
Proposed new mixed-income development on the West Side.


In late 2006, the Bloomberg administration announced an initiative to build new housing on the underutilized land (parking lots and such) of select city public housing projects. Vacant, publicly owned land is now in short supply, the city reasoned. So officials began to look to the NYCHA housing projects as a city-owned resource where space was aplenty, given the "tower in the park" construction that typified the apartment complexes, with large expanses of open space and sometimes parking lots.

Now, seeking to implement the plan in Hell's Kitchen, the city is clashing with the community and elected officials, who claim the city reneged on a promise to build middle- and moderate-income housing.

At NYCHA's Harborview Terrace housing project on West 55th Street, the city has selected Atlantic Development to build two buildings with a total of 342 apartments, with 148 low-income units, 72 middle- and moderate-rate, and 122 market-rate, according to numbers presented to the community board. The project first went before the City Planning Commission last week and is being reviewed.

But members of the community board and elected officials point to a city commitment to build moderate- and middle-income housing as part of the 2005 Hudson Yards rezoning, and they point to a pledge to use publicly owned sites including Harborview for that purpose. The new development at Harborview, the community board says, was supposed to be a mix of housing, with the majority being moderate- and middle-income.

Many incentives built into the rezoning create low-income units as part of larger new apartment buildings, but new middle-income units are in relatively short supply, the community says. Thus the community board says the project needs far more middle-income units, perhaps with more city subsidy if needed (the community board wrote a letter that was critical of the project earlier this summer).

"The market is producing low-income, using the 80/20 program," said Anna Levin, land-use co-chair of Community Board 4. "We want this to be an economically mixed community. We need levels of affordability for moderate- and middle-income people as well, because there are no tools to motivate the development [of that type of housing]."

Local Council Member Gale Brewer is backing the community board, and given that the project needs City Council approval, its fate is uncertain.
"I support the community board," Ms. Brewer said. "We always thought we would have middle-income housing, and maybe some low-income, and very little market [-rate].This is a great deal of market housing."

Seth Donlin, a spokesman for the city's department of Housing Preservation and Development, said the breakdown of units by income at Harborview reflects a need for the project to be financially feasible. (Low-income units tend to be easier to finance and incentivize given an array of government programs, whereas middle-income units tend to require more city subsidy.)

Further, Mr. Donlin said, the pledge to build moderate- and middle-income units is district wide, not specific to this site.

"The agreement was not made project by project--the agreement was made for the area that was rezoned," he said.

http://www.observer.com/2008/real-es...ing-nycha-land

© 2008 Observer Media Group

[Tectonic]

Crain's


As bonuses dry up, so could condo sales

The latest crisis on Wall Street could deal a severe blow to apartment prices in Manhattan.

Elisabeth Butler Cordova

As Wall Street’s financial crisis deepened, real estate insiders on Monday predicted that Manhattan’s residential market could be dealt a severe blow.

Investment brokers and their million-dollar year-end bonuses helped sustain apartment prices in the borough over the past few years, even as the rest of the country endured double-digit price declines. However, now that Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. is headed for liquidation and Merrill Lynch & Co. has been sold to Bank of America Corp., much of that bonus money is uncertain. Many of Lehman’s high-paid employees have already started packing up their desks, and Merrill Lynch will not retain all of its workers.

“Bonuses will be much smaller and the layoffs will continue,” said Jonathan Miller, chief executive of real estate appraisal firm Miller Samuel Inc. “The extent of this problem is mind-boggling.”

Right now, Manhattan is the most vulnerable in the city, said Mr. Miller, whose most recent quarterly report indicated sluggish pricing and a slide in the number of apartment sales. The average apartment price hit $1.7 million during the second quarter, down 3% from the first quarter of 2008. The number of sales dropped 22% to 2,282 during the quarter, compared with the year-ago period, while inventory surged 31% to 6,194 units.

“It (Wall Street) is one of our key economic engines in the city, both for our tax base and demand for residential real estate,” Mr. Miller said. “The ’09 market, and possibly 2010, are going to be characterized by lower volume and some weakness in price levels.”

News of the Wall Street turmoil will likely scare buyers away, at least temporarily.

“People who may have been on the fence are more likely to stay there now,” said Gregory Heym, chief economist at real estate firm Halstead Property. “It’s an uneasy time for people right now.”

Despite the negative implications spewing from Wall Street, there may be a couple of silver linings. First, the worst may be over. “Investment brokers have been releasing bad news in dribs and drabs,” Mr. Miller said. “This is the first step in getting this behind us.”

Second, the city would likely weather a residential turndown well because it doesn’t have a lot of inventory.

“We don’t have the supply problem that other areas have,” Mr. Heym said. Markets such as Washington, D.C., and Miami, which have years’ worth of speculative build-outs sitting vacant, have much higher inventory levels than New York City.

[KenNYC]

Bargain time

[Front_Porch]

Bargain time? Yes and no. We are seeing a little more negotiability on prices -- and the silver lining of Wall Street's troubles is that interest rates are good.

However, we are seeing a wide spectrum of loan rates depending on how many contracts or closings are in the building, so buyers in buildings that have been selling slowly may find that even though they get a decent price, their monthly payments will be higher than the expected.

ali r.
{downtown broker}

[krulltime]

This one looks very promising. Any idea where the exact location for this one will be at? I assume is somewhere on the East Side.



http://www.pjar.com/progress.html

[londonlawyer]

That is awesome. It's on the site of the Potampkin garage on York. Therefore, it would be visible on the East River skyline.

Unfortunately, there's no activity on the DOB's website for this parcel, 1133 York Ave.

[krulltime]

Ahh, now I can picture the location. 61st and York Ave. I though there was another rendering for this site floating around. I hope this is the one they choose.

[londonlawyer]

Ahh, now I can picture the location. 61st and York Ave. I though there was another rendering for this site floating around. I hope this is the one they choose.

I spotted it immediately because I used to live on York. You can tell by the unique and ugly building just to the west of this site.

I think the other rendering you're speaking about is for Solow's site across the street from this which also is on the site of a former garage. Hopefully, the horrible Bently Hotel and gas station on the east side of York will be redevloped too and the crappy animal hospital.

[krulltime]

Yeah this is the one. Oh well, I am sure this one will be chosen in the end.



http://easternconsolidated.com/listi...listing_id=617

[londonlawyer]

I was unaware of that rendering. You're correct. That one and the Phillip Johnson one appear to be for the same site.

[krulltime]

Here is a new rendering for the Church of Epiphany (1393 York Ave/74th Street). Although I am not aware of any news about this project.





http://www.ten-arquitectos.com/

[lofter1]

Oooops -- I now see that STERN beat me to this comparison in another thread ...

***

This is a knock-off (in glass) of Philip Johnson's first proposal for the Urban Glass House site down in Hudson Square ...

I was unaware of that rendering. You're correct. That one and the Phillip Johnson one appear to be for the same site.

This one looks very promising. Any idea where the exact location for this one will be at? I assume is somewhere on the East Side.



http://www.pjar.com/progress.html

Here's a comparison of the two versions:

..... BRICK: ..... GLASS:

[Derek2k3]

http://www.pjar.com/progress.html

I guess it's okay. The brick version wouldn't be that great on York Ave anyway. Still far better than SLCE's filing cabinet design.

I remember when the rendering for The Seasons was released revealing that the building would be brick rather than the glass the massing models alluded to.
Many foumers were disappointed. Now, after all the glass towers, we've made a 180.




The developer of the project hoped to get the tower built on another site. Here's an old article.


http://www.theslatinreport.com/top_s...me=1128jgh.txt

NYC 11 28 05
URBAN GLASS HOUSE: HALF FULL?
Anna Holtzman

Philip Johnson is gone, but not forgotten. A slick sales campaign by real estate marketing firm The Sunshine Group tells us that the Urban Glass House, a vestige of the final projects designed by the late, renowned architect, is rising as we speak in a fast-changing urban industrial outpost at the western edge of SoHo and just north of Tribeca.

The neat marketing package belies a convoluted backstory: First, this isn’t the building Johnson intended as his last legacy (in fact, it is more of a tribute design than one of his own.) Second, the man who dreamed up the project and hired Johnson’s firm-restaurateur-turned-developer Nino Vendome, who after 9/11 turned his nearby restaurant into a home-away-from-home for thousands of rescue and recovery workers at Ground Zero-has all but vanished from the project as well.

Interwoven into the mixed-up tale of Johnson’s legacy is the story of this morphing neighborhood. Vendome’s initial vision opened the doors for a suite of high rise residential projects that ultimately beat him at his own race to set the tone for the neighborhood’s future, and actually set the stage for the rezoning three years ago of the 19th-century industrial district for residential use.

It all began in 1999, when Vendome selected Philip Johnson Alan Ritchie Architects’ envelope-pushing design for a residential tower at Spring and Washington Streets, a site that Vendome had pieced together parcel by parcel over several years. At 26 stories, the project, known then as the Habitable Sculpture, defiantly broke all of the neighborhood’s rules: Not only did it challenge the industrial zoning and the aesthetic of its historic surroundings-the scheme resembled a fistful of towers spliced together, with different facades sticking out at various angles-but, reports Community Board 2 zoning committee chair David Reck, the building’s floor area ratio (FAR) of 17.4 was way above the zoning allowance of 5.

“Everyone loved the building,” Ritchie told The Slatin Report. “We got glowing reports from [then-New York Times architecture critic Herbert] Muschamp and the architectural community.” But Reck and the community board couldn't see past the current zoning, though he concurred that, “The design was really something to look at.” It's axiomatic that community boards dread change, and this one fit the mold. The board feared that making an allowance for Johnson's scheme would open the floodgates for other high rise developments.

They were right: Around the time that Vendome’s proposal was turned down by the city's Board of Standards and Appeals in early 2003, the city had rezoned the neighborhood, and a fleet of new residential developments followed-including Metropolitan Housing Partners’ 505 Greenwich Street, designed by architect Gary Handel and Associates, and developer Jonathon Carroll’s Greenwich Street Project, whose undulating curtain wall is the work of architect Winka Dubbeldam.

Undeterred, Vendome asked Johnson and Ritchie to go back to the drawing board and come up with a design that fit the new 6.02 FAR requirement. Instead of stunting the original opus, Ritchie proposed an entirely new concept-a tribute to Johnson's 1949 Glass House in New Canaan, Conn., one of Johnson's most celebrated works. The resulting “Urban Glass House” is the comparatively squat curtain wall structure now rising at 330 Spring Street.

Although he professes pride in the new design, Ritchie confessed to The Slatin Report, “I feel upset, because we were the trailblazers for how this neighborhood could be developed, and our design offered a contextual feeling for the area, using brick and other historical elements.” Instead, he said, the tone has been set by projects that paid little attention to context.

For Vendome, though, it was too little, too late. In 2004, says Ritchie, after the Urban Glass House had been approved by the Dept. of City Planning and local community groups, Vendome still yearned to build the original Habitable Sculpture, on another site. He sold the Spring Street site with the Johnson Ritchie design to Glass House Development, LLC, a consortium of developers, comprised of Charles Blaichman, Scott Sabbagh, and Abraham Schnay. They hired architect Annabelle Selldorf to design the interiors for the residential units.

Despite persisting resistance from the community, the building’s superstructure is already up, with the first unit slated for completion in June 2006. And further development in the area is inevitable-according to Schnay, there are three other nearby projects in the works. “Give it five more years,” says Reck, “and it’ll be a completely different area.”

Had they known that change was coming, some locals may have preferred the Habitable Sculpture to its replacement. “The current design is a compromise," Rip Hayman, who since 1979 has owned the James Brown House, an early 19th century landmark adjacent to the Glass House site and the home of a famed local tavern, the Ear Inn, told The Slatin Report. "I thought [the original design] was fantastic.” Hayman asserted that he and other longtime residents of the area have always wanted the neighborhood to become residential; he believes that the rezoning will bring benefits such as residential services to the area. “The problem,” he says, “is that it’s become [one of] the most expensive neighborhood in the city, and that’s squeezing out older renters.”

And in this neighborhood, it doesn’t look like the real estate bubble’s about to burst anytime soon. According to Schnay, 25 percent of the Urban Glass House units-priced from $1,140/square foot to $2,325/square foot-have already sold. And he reports that the majority of those interested in the 4,300-square-foot penthouse want to combine it with additional units below. Cindy Saxman, a mortgage broker with Guilford Funding, said of the area in general, “People are buying-I don’t think you’ve seen the end of the boom yet.”

Nino Vendome still hopes to erect his Habitable Sculpture on another site at some point in the future, but he hasn't given up entirely on this site's potential: Vendome retains the ground floor commercial space at the Urban Glass House, where he has asked Ritchie to design an Italian restaurant for him. Said Hayman, “It’s getting to be like Garlic Row here with all the restaurants-the more restaurants you have, the better.” He added wistfully, “Vendome was the one with the vision, but not the real estate experience.”


It doesn't seem like this one will have all intricacies of the previous design either.