Location: 330-334 East 120th Street btwn First/Second Avenues Size: Three four-story townhouses, each with an owner's duplex and two rental apartments Prices: $1.6 million, $1.695 million and $1.825 million Architect: Danois Architects Developer: Briarwood Organization Sales & Marketing: Briarwood Properties
All the big-box retail talk this week has been about how Ikea will affect Red Hook, but what if we told you an even larger retail project is being plopped down into another underdeveloped area ... in Manhattan! It's happening in East Harlem, or Spanish Harlem or El Barrio if you prefer, with the megamall known as East River Plaza. How will the 485,000-square-foot monster along the FDR at 116th Street affect development? Here's the first indication. On a lot that sat vacant for 15 years, a trio of 3,900-square-foot three-family townhouses are popping up, with prices starting at $1.6 million. The property sizes vary slightly, but each home contains a 3BR, 2.5BA owner's duplex with a private backyard, and two 2BR, 1BA apartments for renting. The most expensive of the three amigos includes an 8' side yard. No interior renderings, unfortunately, but we have photos of construction progress as well as a complete floorplan breakdown. So, new houses by the mall? SpaHa has gone suburban!
East 120th Street Townhouses
330-334 East 120th Street, East Harlem New Construction, Gentrification, Target's Shadow website
1) A second penthouse at 15 Central Park West has hit the market, joining Dr. Lindsay Rosenwald's duplex on the 18th and 19th floors of the "House" building (which officially doesn't have a listing price but is said to commanding at least $90 million). A penthouse on the 40th floor of the "Tower," a 5,270-square-foot four bedroom apartment that also includes a ground-level 1,100-square-foot space for the help, is now asking $80 million, after closing in April for "just" $21.9 million. The owner is London-based investor Amit Ben-Haim, who made his money from selling off a medical device company he founded. According to brokers, the apartments are "already attracting interest from a stream of billionaires and their representatives," so call these penthouses the anti-Pierre. [Big Deal/Josh Barbanel]
2) Mount Sinai Medical Center's 31-story black Annenberg Building at 99th Street off Fifth Avenue is often said to be a blight, but would the East Harlem locals rather have that than an even taller condo building that could come about as a result of Mount Sinai selling off the development rights to fund a new 11-story SOM-designed medical building nearby? Critics are worried that the Durst Organization's 564-foot-tall proposed tower would leave part of Central Park in the shadows. And there's also the sensitive affordable housing topic. The city has yet to approve the deal. [The City/Gregory Beyer]
3) The rent-stabilized tenants of 220 Central Park—the 30 or so left in the building—are still fighting the demolition of their 20-story building, and they won a recent court battle which at least buys them some time. The Clarett Group and Vornado are trying to get everyone out so they can build a 41-story glass condo on the site, and the other tenants have all moved or been bought out. The holdouts, which include Corcoran's Leighton Candler, reportedly turned down an offer of $1 million per apartment to vacate. [Big Deal/Josh Barbanel]
2) Greenpoint: The Department of buildings charged Brooklyn's lightning rod architect Robert Scarano with making false or misleading statements on applications, which could lead to the loss of the ability to file paperwork with DOB.
3) Red Hook: The big new Ikea is finished and the waterfront looks nothing like it used to, unless the old Shipyard had cafe tables back there.
The Bridges NYC is a former Curbed Development Du Jour at Third Avenue and 124th Street in East Harlem, two new-construction buildings comprised of 31 total condo units. The Bridges NYC is also East Harlem's newest rental property. According to the Sun, the north building—consisting of two- and three-bedroom apartments ranging from 1,200 to 1,700 square feet—failed to attract a single buyer. The developer will now charge rents starting at $4,000 per month, and bring on Wachovia and a government agency to occupy retail space in the building (the building wasn't supposed to have commercial space). The south building has sold some units, per the report, and the website and listings are still active. So why the failure up north? According to Halstead broker Stephen Kliegerman, the apartments were too big and expensive for the gentrifying East Harlem 'hood: "Studios, one-bedrooms would have been fine. The trend in East Harlem is affordability, and the building just missed the mark a bit."
· Credit Crunch Turns Condos Into Rentals [Sun]
· Development Du Jour: The Bridges NYC [Curbed]
· The Bridges NYC [thebridgesnyc.com]
Hate the suburban big-box invasion of New York? Blame architecture firm GreenbergFarrow. Well, don't really, because they're all probably very nice people, but the Times has an interesting story on the retail revolution going on around the boroughs, and GreenbergFarrow is the thread that runs through them all. Home Depot's firm of choice has a hand in the massive East River Plaza in Harlem along the FDR, the massive Gateway Center at Bronx Terminal Market (above), the massive Red Hook Ikea and many more. The paper points out that while urban office tower developers have been going the starchitect route to make a statement, the priorities of big-box retailers have made GreenbergFarrow (who have also done One Ten 3rd and the Zinc Building, btw) masters of the mundane.
And about that 15-years-in-the-making East River Plaza, some very interesting developments. The mall—OMG, Target!—is now expected to open in October 2009. The façade was designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Kevin Roche, and to add to that suburban mall feel, it will be wrapped in a steel mesh American flag. Home Depot is trying to sublet its 110,000-square-foot space (as previously reported), and candidates include Costco and BJ's. Holy crap, warehouse club stores in Manhattan? Now we've seen everything.
· Squeezing Big-Box Retailing Into Small City Spaces [NYT]
1)James Delayo, the Buildings Department crane inspector arrested on Friday for taking bribes and selling copies of a crane operators' exam, was released on his own recognizance after appearing in court. The charges against him include bribe-receiving and tampering with public records, both felonies that could carry seven year prison terms (and can we tack on some extra time for wearing a bandana as a belt?). The 26-year DOB veteran, who was promoted following the March 15 crane collapse that killed seven, allegedly took money in exchange for issuing licenses to Class C crane operators (smaller than the tower cranes that have been falling on the city) that worked for Nu-Way Crane Service in Copiague. Delayo has been suspended without pay. ['Top City Crane Inspector Accused of Taking Bribes'/NYT]
2) When the moneyed citizens of the Upper East Side aren't busy fighting churches, they turn their attention to those banners that the Department of Transportation hangs on lampposts to advertise things going on in New York. One staunch blue blood even refers to them as "dirty laundry." [The City/Gregory Beyer]
3) A graphic designer who grew up in Soho wants to move out of his parents' Broome Street loft, but his budget is $300,000. With not many places to turn, he opts for a studio on the Far West Side near the Lincoln Tunnel and West Side Rail Yards. It reminds him of the Soho of his youth, he says, and he digs the seediness and drug addicts. [The Hunt/Joyce Cohen]
4) Want to sell your apartment eventually? Then don't put any of your personality into it whatsoever. Yeesh, does anybody look at a home as a home anymore, and not just an investment? ['Start in Neutral'/Teri Karush Rogers]
"Stop calling East Harlem Spa-Ha! I hate that shit. And the same goes for WaHI or WaMu or whatever. Please stop." A bank-branded neighborhood? Now there's an idea. [CurbedWire Inbox]
1) Writer Lynn Harris, a self-loathing Park Slopeian, sizes up the reasons for all the "Slope Rage" burning up the the Internet in what is a very long-awaited take on Brooklyn's favorite punching bag: "Today, Park Slope is a brand, a concept. Fourth Avenue — the Champs-Élysées of auto parts! — is home to the vile Novo Park Slope condo-monstrosity and the ridiculous boutique Hotel Le Bleu, whose Web site reveals its high prices (up to $369), but not its location on a bleak slip between a taxi garage and a Staples. (What are the odds that its cocktail bar will serve as the gin joint of choice for the fabulous fictional Slopers in the drama about the neighborhood that is being developed, seriously, by Darren Star of “Sex and the City”?)" ["Park Slope: Where Is the Love?"/Lynn Harris]
2) Much like Williamsburg's La Marqueta, East Harlem's own classic La Marqueta is twisting in the wind, and the future of this once-bustling community fixture isn't very clear. The latest plan is to create a permanent open-air market with an eight-block stretch of kiosks filled with local vendors, but every plan to save the complex over the years has fallen apart. [The City/Alex Mindlin]
3) A look into the trend of building residents coming together online to network, complain and order window treatments as a group. The Gantry in LIC has a tight-knit little group, and Stuy Town is about to go digital. ['They're All Connected'/Lisa Keys]
FiDi—The Battery Park Sea Glass Carousel must be making progress. At least, the model of the carousel is. A tipster sent this photo of a new model that has appeared, writing "I walked by 1 new york plaza at lunch and saw this new model of the carousel they're planning to build. it looks fantastic. the one large turntable has 3 smaller ones inside that also revolve. it really is beautiful. i wonder how much it costs!" The original Sea Glass Carousel was priced at $12 million. [CurbedWire Inbox]
WILLIAMSBURG—Work is starting on the building at 53 Broadway across the street from the Gretsch Building. Per an email: "Construction is imminent on the 7-story condo/retail building in the vacant lot next to Marlow & Sons. Heavy machinery has been put in place and a construction fence has been partially erected since Monday and painted blue. Work permits allow for construction starting at 7 a.m., which will surely annoy many Gretsch Building residents across the street." [CurbedWire Inbox]
GREENWICH VILLAGE—The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation sends word that the South Village Historic District is moving forward. The area west of Sixth Avenue is being studied first by the Landmarks Commission. [CurbedWire Inbox]
Comments
1) A second penthouse at 15 Central Park West has hit the market, joining 
1) James Delayo, the Buildings Department crane inspector 
