Search Results for: rezone

To solve New York City's housing and homelessness crisis, more affordable housing should be built in high-rise neighborhoods which have the infrastructure and amenities to support it, the Regional Plan Association (RPA) said in a report released Monday. In order to build more developments in areas of all incomes, RPA says a 67-year-old state law that prohibits residential buildings larger than 12 times their lot size needs to be repealed. Passed by the state in 1961, the law caps residential floor area ratio (FAR) at 12.0. The report calls for lifting the cap to give communities more of a voice in the creation of mixed-income housing, as well as allow for expensive neighborhoods to diversify and expand affordability.
Find out more

Union Square tech hubbub heats up ahead of public review date with mayor’s latest rezoning bid

Rendering via NYCEDC

January 30, 2018

Union Square tech hubbub heats up ahead of public review date with mayor’s latest rezoning bid

In what may be shaping up to be one of New York City's biggest preservation battles of the coming year, Mayor Bill de Blasio's application Monday for a rezoning in order to move forward with a proposed tech hub at 124 East 14th Street in Union Square led neighborhood preservation and affordable housing groups to escalate cries of protest. Community organizations, including the Cooper Square Committee and the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP), restated the urgent need for assurance that rezoning would come with protections for the adjacent residential neighborhood. Preservationists fear the creation of a new "Silicon Alley" near Union Square will bring rent hikes and more condo and office towers. The proposed tech center, which the mayor hopes will nurture budding entrepreneurs in the technology field and bring over 600 jobs to New Yorkers, is planned at the site of a P.C. Richard & Son store, in an area already filled with new developments with more on the way.
Find out more

Construction halted at 800-foot Sutton Place tower after City Council approves rezoning

The original rendering of 3 Sutton Place by Foster + Partners

December 1, 2017

Construction halted at 800-foot Sutton Place tower after City Council approves rezoning

Gamma Real Estate will stop work on Sutton 58, a proposed 800-foot-tall residential tower at 3 Sutton Place, after the New York City Council voted on Thursday to rezone 10 blocks on the Upper East Side. According to The Real Deal, the rezoning requires properties between 51st and 59th Streets east of First Avenue to follow ‘tower-on-a-base” rules, meaning 45 to 50 percent of the building must be built below 150 feet. This drastically changes the developer's plan for a soaring skyscraper and also caps the height of future buildings.
Find out more

Policy

My 824sqft: Extell Development’s VP of Architecture moves into Hudson Square’s 70 Charlton

6sqft’s series “My sqft” checks out the homes of New Yorkers across all the boroughs. Our latest interior adventure brings us to the Hudson Square apartment of architect Brooks McDaniel. Want to see your home featured here? Get in touch!

November 6, 2017

My 824sqft: Extell Development’s VP of Architecture moves into Hudson Square’s 70 Charlton

In 2013, the Hudson Square area was rezoned to allow residential development for the first time, and the first building to welcome tenants into the neighborhood was Extell Development's 70 Charlton Street. Though Beyer Blinder Belle are responsible for the industrial-style facade, it's actually Extell's team of in-house architects who got the ball rolling, as they do with all projects, from Billionaires' Row blockbusters like One57 and the Central Park Tower to downtown game changers like 555Ten and One Manhattan Square. For the past three years, Brooks McDaniel has worked as Extell's Vice President of Architecture. After experiencing first-hand their "level of design, quality of construction, and attention to detail," he decided to live in an Extell building. Wanting to move back to Manhattan from Brooklyn, he chose 70 Charlton for its clean, modern aesthetic and easy access to so many great areas. He recently gave us a tour of his custom-designed pad and filled us in on what it's like working for one of NYC's biggest developers.
Take the tour

Rendering of the Hunters Point South project, courtesy of NYCEDC

October 18, 2017

Prime Long Island City site could be the perfect spot for Amazon’s HQ2

An eight-acre, 1.6 million-square-foot residential site next to Hunters Point South is for sale, a piece of land owned by a family for generations. According to the New York Post, the site could potentially bring in $480 million if targeted to market-rate condominiums since land in Long Island City sells for roughly $300 per square foot. The triangle-shaped plot of land found at 55-01 Second Street and bounded by 54th Avenue and Vernon Boulevard, sits on Newtown Creek, an estuary that forms part of the border between Brooklyn and Queens. The site might make the perfect spot for Amazon’s second headquarters as the tech giant seeks 500,000 square feet for their HQ2 by 2019.
Find out more

What happens if Amazon’s HQ2 doesn’t land in New York?

Photo courtesy of Robert Scoble on Flickr

October 17, 2017

What happens if Amazon’s HQ2 doesn’t land in New York?

Amazon’s nationwide competition to find a home for its second headquarters draws to a close this week, with pitches from stakeholders due Thursday. While New York City meets most of the requirements the tech giant listed for its HQ2-- a population of at least 1 million people, proximity to an international airport, mass transit access and talented workforce--business costs in the city would be sky-high. However, as Crain’s reported, even if Amazon does not set up shop in NYC, politicians and developers have been preparing for a comparably-sized company to move in for over a decade. The failure of the city to win the 2012 Olympics bid back in 2005 actually turned into a success, allowing apartments to rise in Brooklyn where sports stadiums never did.
Find out more

City Planning Commission approves East Harlem rezoning plan

Photo via Wikimedia

October 3, 2017

City Planning Commission approves East Harlem rezoning plan

The City Planning Commission approved on Monday Mayor Bill de Blasio’s proposal to rezone East Harlem. With this crucial approval, the plan moves to the City Council for the last stage of the public review process, which began in April (h/t City Limits). The de Blasio administration’s rezoning efforts, run by the city’s Department of City Planning, aim to create affordable housing, create economic opportunities and restore East Harlem’s role as a major transit hub and job center. Over a decade, the plan hopes to create about 122,000-square-feet of stores and restaurants and 275,000-square-feet of office and industrial space.
More this way

Apply for 22 energy-efficient apartments at a passive house in the Bronx from $865/month

Rendering of 3365 Third Avenue courtesy of Curtis+Ginsberg Architects

August 31, 2017

Apply for 22 energy-efficient apartments at a passive house in the Bronx from $865/month

Applications are currently being accepted for 22 affordable apartments at 3365 Third Avenue in the Bronx neighborhood of Morrisania. Developed by Bronx Pro Group and designed by Curtis+Ginsberg Architects, the project meets the passive house standard by featuring energy-efficient measures such as fiberglass triple-pane windows, LED lighting, and low-flow water fixtures -- all of which will result in energy reduction savings as high as high as nearly 90 percent. Qualifying New Yorkers earning 60 or 100 percent of the area median income can apply for the units, ranging from $865/month studios to$1,969/month four-bedrooms.
Find out if you qualify

Affordable Housing

City Council unanimously approves Midtown East rezoning plan

Conceptual image depicting all of the proposed sites of the East Midtown rezoning fully built out, via CityRealty

August 10, 2017

City Council unanimously approves Midtown East rezoning plan

After five years, the City Council approved a rezoning for Manhattan’s Midtown East on Wednesday, by a 42-0 vote. The proposal will rezone roughly 78 blocks, running from East 39th Street to East 57th Street and from Third Avenue to Madison Avenue, clearing the way for 6.5 million square feet of office space in the area. A new updated zoning code is expected to incentivize new, dense development, allowing Midtown to compete with other booming business districts in the borough like Hudson Yards and the Financial District. As the New York Times reported, this change which lets developers build to a higher floor area ratio could result in new supertall towers.
Find out more

Policy

July 27, 2017

CetraRuddy proposes sustainable designs for first office building along the Village’s ‘Silicon Alley’

An "oversized Silicon Alley" is what some are calling Mayor de Blasio's plan to transform Union Square and its southern stretches into the city's next tech hub. The main component so far is the massive Union Square Tech Hub proposed to replace the P.C. Richard & Son building on East 14th Street, but Councilwoman Rosie Mendez and the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation are advocating that, in exchange for the building, the city rezone the surrounding blocks to prevent an influx of out-of-scale development. Despite their oppositions, CetraRuddy has revealed on their site two environmentally friendly proposals for the site at 799 Broadway, the former home of the St. Denis Hotel at the southwest corner of East 11th Street. Spotted by CityRealty, the 240-foot, 17-story office building would be the first catering to the Mayor's tech dreams, though the renderings are merely conceptual at this point.
All the renderings and details ahead

Locals employ new zoning strategy to keep skyscrapers from rising in Midtown East

New rendering of the entrance to 430 East 58th Street, also known as Sutton 58. Photo: Thomas Juul-Hansen

July 6, 2017

Locals employ new zoning strategy to keep skyscrapers from rising in Midtown East

In what they're calling an "unprecedented citizens' application," the East River 50s Alliance, a Sutton Place/Midtown community group, has mounted a renewed campaign to oppose an 800-foot tall condo tower that's rising at 430 East 58th Street, the Wall Street Journal reports. As 6sqft previously reported, the developers of the new tower, Gamma Real Estate, closed on the $86 million site earlier this year in a bankruptcy sale and hired Danish-born architect Thomas Juul-Hansen to design the new skyscraper. The group has filed an application for a zoning change that calls for a ban on tall towers in a 10-square-block area; developers regularly file for zoning changes that cover only the property they're looking to build on.
Find out more

New Developments

City Planning Commission officially approves Midtown East Rezoning

Conceptual image depicting all of the proposed sites of the East Midtown rezoning fully built out, via CityRealty

June 7, 2017

City Planning Commission officially approves Midtown East Rezoning

The City Planning Commission unanimously approved the long-awaited rezoning plan for Midtown East on Wednesday, which will rezone 78 blocks in hopes of modernizing the neighborhood. The plan, which was released last August, follows Mayor Bloomberg’s failed attempt to rezone the area in 2013. According to the Real Deal, the proposal would create 6.5 million square feet of new office space over the next twenty years. This would potentially encourage taller and more modern office towers, attracting more commercial and corporate tenants.
Find out more

Policy

Redeveloping NYC’s armories: When adaptive reuse and community building bring controversy

Park Avenue Armory, image © PBDW Architects

May 30, 2017

Redeveloping NYC’s armories: When adaptive reuse and community building bring controversy

Constructed between the 18th and 20th centuries to resemble massive European fortresses and serve as headquarters, housing, and arms storage for state volunteer militia, most of America’s armories that stand today had shed their military affiliations by the later part of the 20th century. Though a number of them did not survive, many of New York City’s historic armories still stand. While some remain in a state of limbo–a recent setback in the redevelopment plans of Brooklyn's controversial Bedford-Union Armory in Crown Heights raises a familiar battle cry–the ways in which they've adapted to the city’s rollercoaster of change are as diverse as the neighborhoods that surround them.
Find out how the city's armories have fared

The Shed via Wikipedia

May 24, 2017

Michael Bloomberg gives $75 million to Hudson Yards arts center The Shed

Michael R. Bloomberg has added a $75 million contribution to what the New York Times calls "New York's first new cultural institution in recent memory," the arts center known as The Shed, part of the new Hudson Yards development on Manhattan's far west side. The former mayor's gift brings the total raised for the project to $421 million of its $500 million capital campaign. The new arts center has gotten much of its funding from a small group of billionaires that includes Related Companies' Stephen M. Ross and media mogul Barry Diller. Set for completion in 2019, the eight-level structure, designed by Diller Scofidio & Renfro in partnership with the Rockwell Group, will host performances, concerts, visual art, music and other events.
A 'tool kit for artists'

Midtown’s tiny Greenacre Park fights for light among sky-high skyscrapers

Terry Tynes via flickr (CC)

May 23, 2017

Midtown’s tiny Greenacre Park fights for light among sky-high skyscrapers

As a small oasis in the center of Manhattan, Greenacre Park is home to honey locust trees, azaleas, pansies and a 25-foot-high waterfall, all taking up just 6,360 square feet of space. However, the city’s plan to rezone Midtown East to allow for more commercial buildings worries some advocates who say it may deplete Greenacre Park from any sunlight, as the Times reported. But the Municipal Art Society, New Yorkers for Parks, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and Councilmember Daniel Garodnick, are backing a campaign called "Fight For Light" to protect the park's right to sunlight.
Get the full scoop

Policy

Live around the corner from Penn Station for $833/month

Rendering via GHWA (L); Construction topped off as of September 2016 via CityRealty (R)

May 2, 2017

Live around the corner from Penn Station for $833/month

That might not sound like the most enticing location, but with Chelsea's galleries nearby, Nomad's booming restaurant and fitness scene just a five- or 10-minute walk away, and Hudson Yards shaping up to the northwest, this newly constructed building at 221 West 29th Street might have more to offer than you'd think. And as of tomorrow, those earning 60 percent of the area median income can apply for 19 units here through the city's affordable housing lottery, ranging from $833/month studios to $1,082/month two-bedrooms.
Find out if you qualify

Affordable Housing

April 26, 2017

Apply for eight affordable units in the Bronx’s Crotona Park East, from $1,348/month

Adding to the development boom in the South Bronx, eight newly constructed units are available to rent at 1417 Longfellow Avenue. Located in the Crotona Park East neighborhood, which was rezoned six years ago to allow more residential buildings in the former industrial area, the building contains 38 apartments that each are about 636-square units. New Yorkers who qualify can apply for four $1,348 one-bedrooms and four $1,521 two-bedrooms.
Find out if you qualify

Affordable Housing

The city’s struggling garment industry finds a new home in Sunset Park

Photo via Alexandra Ferguson

February 8, 2017

The city’s struggling garment industry finds a new home in Sunset Park

At its peak in 1950, the city's garment industry employed 323,669 New Yorkers. By 2000, this number had dropped to 59,049, and in 2015, it was less than half that with just 22,626 residents "making apparel, accessories, and finished textile products," reports the Times. The struggling trade, long centered in the area bound by 5th/9th Avenues and 35th/41st Streets, has fallen victim not only to national trends of work being shipped overseas, but local issues like rising rents, outdated facilities, and competition from tech and media companies. But thanks to a collaboration between the city and the Council of Fashion Designers of America, a "new, modern garment district" is taking hold in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, where several industrial conversions offer cheaper rents, better equipped real estate, and a creative, collaborative community
Much more on the shift

Uncategorized

February 7, 2017

Massive Sendero Verde project will bring 655 affordable ‘passive house’ rentals to East Harlem

A massive, mixed-use development is moving ahead in East Harlem, reports Politico, as the city has selected Jonathan Rose Companies to work with L+M Development Partners on the 751,000-square-foot project. Dubbed Sendero Verde ("green pathway"), the site is located on the block bound by East 111th and 112th Streets and Park and Madison Avenues, and it will create 655 affordable passive house apartments, as well as a YMCA, job training center, 85,000-square-foot DREAM charter school, space for the local non-profit Union Settlement, a grocery store, restaurant, and preventative health care facility run by Mount Sinai.
All the details ahead

February 6, 2017

A High Line-esque bridge and park are coming to Newark, New Jersey

By Diane Pham

Change is coming quickly for Newark, New Jersey, where many are pegging the long-troubled city for a renaissance akin to Brooklyn's. In January, city officials and developers unveiled their plans for Mulberry Commons, a 22-acre development in Newark's downtown that would not only bring forth new residential, commercial, and office space*, but also a three-acre park and a High Line-style pedestrian bridge that would connect the Ironbound neighborhood to Newark Penn Station and the central business district. According to the Newark Department of Economic & Housing Development, the city is expected to benefit in excess of $500 million from the project.
more details here

Uncategorized

From just $368/month, lottery opens for 107 affordable apartments in Crotona Park East

An early rendering of the project, via CityLand

January 11, 2017

From just $368/month, lottery opens for 107 affordable apartments in Crotona Park East

In April, the affordable housing lottery commenced for 79 units at Building A of the Bronx's Crotona Terrace development in Crotona Park East. Now, 107 additional apartments are up for grabs at Building B, ranging from $368/month studios to $1,740/month three-bedrooms, broken down for those earning no more than 30, 40, 50, 60, or 100 percent of the area media income. This mixed-income setup is similar to other projects in the Crotona Park East neighborhood, which was rezoned nearly six years ago to allow more residential in a historically industrial area to create increased affordable housing.
Find out if you qualify

Affordable Housing

January 4, 2017

New details for controversial Midtown East rezoning revealed, plan moves forward with land use review

Plans to rezone Midtown East are few steps closer to reality with the start of the new year. The Department of City Planning has certified a rezoning proposal for the area surrounding Grand Central, and the city kicked off its official land-use review process Tuesday. The next step for the rezoning plans will be the seven-month Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), which includes review by community boards 5 and 6, the Manhattan borough president, the City Planning Commission and the City Council. The zoning proposal could add 6.5 million square feet of commercial space to the 73-block district in the form of 16 larger, more modern buildings that would replace old ones, breathing new life into the office zone that New York Post real estate columnist Steve Cuozzo recently referred to as “iconic but declining.”
Find out more

Policy

December 2, 2016

How 100 years of zoning has shaped New York City

By Cait Etherington

In October, city officials unveiled plans to rezone a large swath of East Harlem. The major thrust of the rezoning initiative is to bring more high-rise buildings to a corridor running several blocks along Park, Second, and Third avenues. By building up, city officials hope the neighborhood will increase its housing stock, including its affordable […]

November 30, 2016

Renderings revealed for adaptive reuse Maker Park along the Williamsburg waterfront