Today is the quiet start of an era in the Brooklyn hotel wars, with the Nu Hotel having its soft opening and ratcheting up the competition in the once hotel starved market. Yes, there have been Comfort Inns and Holiday Inns and there's even a growing Gowanus Hotel District, but the Nu, despite being across the street from the Brooklyn House of Detention is aimed at a more upscale, cool market. (You have been put on notice, Andre.) One floor of Nu is open (with a full opening planned in August) with the room rate being $349 and an introductory rate of $199. Le Bleu, meanwhile, which is on Fourth Avenue, seems to have come down a bit in price again, with rooms ranging from $279-$389. (But, do check out the "Serenity Package" for $499/night.) Le Bleu offers "uber chic glamor and luxurious living" nestled between a taxi depot and staple. The Nu Hotel "blends high style and luxury with New York City flair" across from the Brooklyn House of Detention. Le Bleu has dramatic glass showers in the room; Nu has hammocks. Also, they rhyme.
· Bklyn's Nu Hotel Schedules Soft Opening for Monday [Brooklyn Eagle]
· Nu Hotel [nuhotelbrooklyn.com]
· Nu Hotel Ready to Face Off Against Ye Olde Hotel on Smith St. [Curbed]
All those park projects that we post renderings of from time to time are many things, but they're not cheap. Today's Post adds up the cost and comes up with $1.3 billion for a range of projects from the $50 million McCarren Pool redo to the big 2,200 acre Fresh Kills, landfill-to-park plan in Staten Island. (The tally doesn't count state projects like Brooklyn Bridge Park.) The borough breakdown finds the Bronx in the lead with $400M with of projects, followed by Manhattan with $4354M and Brooklyn with $273M. Queens comes in a weak fourth with $198M and Staten Island brings up the rear with $119M. There's a full breakdown of the projects, borough by borough, here.
· City's Park Row: Battle Over $1.3B Tab for Spruce Up [NYP]
· NYC Park Improvement Projects in Construction or Design Phase [NYP]
1) Currently listed as "temporarily off market," Diana Ross's full-floor Sherry-Netherland apartment will reportedly be relisted for $11 million, up from the old $9 million asking price. Braden Keil reports that the park-fronting seven-room co-op will get a sprucing-up in the meantime. Interior shminterior, check out that view! Yum. [Gimme Shelter]
2) To us, the 45 Fifth Avenue penthouse owned by designer Betsey Johnson will always be legendary. Not legendary enough, however, to sell for $3.6 million. But after a couple of price cuts (latest asking price: $2,495,000) and some lengthy time on the market, the two-bedroom apartment has finally sold. [NYM]
3) Just asking: Does divorce mean the end of Alex Rodriguez's epic "trophy property" hunt? And might his massive Trump Park Avenue spread be hitting the market anytime soon? The rumor mill swirls!
Late last week, when all the sane folk had departed the city for beachy environs, uh...this was going on. It kind of makes you wonder what else happens in this crazy town on holiday weekends, doesn't it? [CurbedWire Inbox]
1) The artists who inhabit the 9-story building at 5 East 3rd Street recently got a gift from the city: after outlasting the rough Bowery days in a glorified version of squatting, they were allowed to take title to their apartments in a newly formed condominium (they renamed the building Wyoming Arts Condiminium; right). But they need to sell the one vacant apartment for $1.7 million to pay back their loan and obtain a certificate of occupancy, but they can't close with the buyer until they get that certificate of occupancy. The seventies were a much simpler time, no? [Big Deal/'Catch 22 of Urban Renewal']
2) The latest must-have accessory for new condo projects is a cemetery view, with their leafy, winding paths, sweeping light and zen-like quiet. Except at night, of course, when the anguished screams of those tortured souls lost in purgatory fill the night air with their suffering. [Posting/'Whistling Past the Condominiums']
3) The new family-friendly NYC is causing a war amongst parents who are raising kids in apartment buildings and their kid-less neighbors who just want a night of uninterrupted sleep. Said one Park Slope twentysomething about those darned kids: "It's exhausting. Even my boyfriend doesn’t ever want to come over — it’s so horrible." ['The Noise Childrean Make']
4) Park Slopers, already sleep deprived from the sounds of crying children, will not be getting any relief from airplane noise anytime soon, either. But hey, at least the 'hood isn't as bad as Flushing, right? [The City/Park Slope]
5) It's no surprise that a visual merchandiser for Pottery Barn has a crapload of furniture, so can he find a one-bedroom Chelsea/Hell's Kitchen rental that A) fits into his ~$2k budget and B) fits all of his furniture? With the aid of (product placement!) FlyRig, he does. [The Hunt/'Room to Decorate']
Here are our favorite Curbed Flickr Pool submissions of this past week. All images are credited by photographer. If you'd like to contribute, join our Curbed Pool and drop more pictures in during the week.
This weekend, it's all about the diehards. Sure, everyone should probably be on a beach somewhere, grillin' and chillin' with family and/or bestest buds. But for that small subset of home shoppers that live and breathe all for the thrill of the hunt, this weekend is no different than any other. They are out there, pounding the pavement, and we salute them. And we want to hear from them! So let's open a thread for discussion of open house visits. If you're out and about in the New York City real estate market this weekend, let us know what you're seeing out there: crowd sizes, market conditions, great or gruesome finds, and of course, reports on any brokers offering buy-one-get-one-free wieners. Your thoughts in the comments, if you please.
According to the freshly issued quarterly market reports, the average cost of a Manhattan apartment is now just over $1.6 million. Think about that for a second. Let it really sink in. Fork over 1,600,000 little symbols of your collected blood, sweat & tears, and you still have spent less than the average Manhattan homebuyer. Strange times, friends. So, we decided to head to a traditionally expensive but not crazy neighborhood—in this case, the Upper West Side—to see what qualifies as below average nowadays. And indeed, we found a handful of crazies not afraid to schedule open houses on holiday weekends. God bless you, below-average sellers. It's people like you who delay our daily opening of the gin bottle to 10, sometimes 11 in the morning.
· Weekend Open House Tour archives [Curbed]
As this long weekend Saturday gets underway, check out a selection of some of the top stories on Curbed this week.
1) West Village: NYU's Plan 2031has been re-rendered and it has a little something to make everybody a little insane. This time around, it includes new high-rises within Washington Square Village and I.M. Pei's Silver Towers, and a "zipper loft" design to replace the Coles Gymnasium.
2) FiDi: There are additional models and renderings of the SHoP Architects plan for General Growth Properties to makeover the South Street Seaport.
3) Everywhere: Are things up, down, turning around or have they hit the ground? There were many market reports this weekindicating many things.
4) Brooklyn Heights: It's unclear when the entire Brooklyn Bridge Park will be funded and built, new renderings were released this week and some segments will be done by next. year.
5) Long Island City: The Crescent Club turns out to have a fitness center designed by Madonna babydaddy Carlos Leon.
6) Central Park: To us, the turkey wandering around the Ramble like he owns the freakin' place is definitely the story that rounds out the pack.
WEST VILLAGE—Sure, our last check-in with Asymptote's somewhat slow-moving condo building at 166 Perry Street wasn't all that long ago, but who doesn't want another look at all that bendy glass? The mini-Meier, if you recall, will have quite the lobby. [CurbedWire Inbox]
BANKVILLE—Think bank backlash is something new? Writes a tipster: "I just found an interesting quote about the proliferation of banks in the city back in the day. From Page 60 of Ada Louise Huxtable's Will They Ever Finish Bruckner Boulevard? (New York: Macmillan Company, 1970): "...en masse they make streetscapes of suffocating dullness. There is, in fact, a kind of creeping bank disease laying a cold, dead hand on New York..." [CurbedWire Inbox]
"I'm not giving Karl a pass because some of his clients are cheap, have bad taste, and/or can't get financing to build something better. Karl has a long enough track record that he can judged, across his highs and lows, for what he is: a hack. By hack, I mean his work is in the bottom decile in terms of quality relative to all buildings being built in New York. As there aren't many bottom-decile architects with as many commissions, Karl can responsibly claim to be the biggest hack in the city." [Karl Fischer Speaks: He Likes to Keep a Clear Mind]
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1) The artists who inhabit the 9-story building at 5 East 3rd Street recently got a gift from the city: after outlasting the rough Bowery days in a glorified version of squatting, they were allowed to take title to their apartments in a newly formed condominium (they renamed the building Wyoming Arts Condiminium; right). But they need to sell the one vacant apartment for $1.7 million to pay back their loan and obtain a certificate of occupancy, but they can't close with the buyer until they get that certificate of occupancy. The seventies were a much simpler time, no? [
