All stories about "Community Board 1"

It is well known that Donald Trump, a notable Manhattan-based real estate developer (right), licenses his name out to projects around the world in exchange for a cut of the sales. What is not so well known, however, is just how much The Donald pockets from these deals. Today's Page Six gives us some very interesting insight. Trump is suing a luxury condo developer over a 70-story "Trump Plaza" planned in Israel. It would have been Israel's tallest tower, but the developer flipped the property before building it, cutting Trump out of the profits and making him very angry. It's easy to see why: Trump was to collect 25% of every unit sold. Whoa now! And in a juicy twist, the developer who Trump alleges stiffed him is Crescent Heights Diamond, which counts Bruce Menin among its principals. Bruce Menin is married to Community Board 1 chair Julie Menin, who has been accused of some shady real estate dealings in the past, from the sale of the Trump Soho land to the de-landmarking of 25 Broad Street to make way for luxury condos (see comment #1). Well, wasn't that the worldwide gossip item that kept on giving!
· Trump Sues Over Israel 'Flip' [NYP]

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[Photos via PropertyShark]

Last November, Elad Properties sold 250 West Street to a group of Russian investors for $250 million, after having purchased the Tribeca building from Citigroup about 18 month before for just $142 million. Those investors would now like to make some money, thankyouverymuch, so the plan is to convert the 11-story building into 80 or 90 condos, with a 5,000-square-foot penthouse built as a rooftop addition. The plan calls for a 2010 move-in date, but this, friends, is the Tribeca North Historic District, and so the plan must make its way through both Community Board 1 and the Landmarks Preservation Commission. The Downtown Express reports that the developers also want to replace the building’s cornice, redo the main entrance and add townhouse entrances around the building.

It's that latter suggestion that already has Community Board 1—yes that Community Board 1—in a tizzy. UK firm David Chipperfield Architects wants to replace the 52 ground-level windows and create 10 townhouse entrances around the building, because "townhouses" tucked into fancy new condo buildings is the latest luxury development trend (and a way to add cachet to ground-floor apartments). The paper reports that at a recent board meeting, CB1 "overwhelmingly disapproved" this idea. We can only imagine what colorful language they used to do so.
· C.B. 1 steps on stoop idea for Tribeca townhouses [Downtown Express]

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Because the parking lot at 74 Hudson Street falls in the Tribeca West Historic District, the owner's plan to build a one-story retail building on the property has to navigate a complicated series of government agencies, starting with Community Board 1, which passes on an advisory vote to the Landmarks Preservation Commission. At last night's CB1 meeting, the board voted on the resolution written up by its Landmarks Committee about the proposal. So what does the subcommittee think about the "glass and steel-beam" design? Check out the portion of the resolution excerpted above, which shows the full extent of the wackiness that grips our localest of government agencies. It was hard to underline one specific passage as our favorite (we're suckers for a good vampire characterization), but other favorite zingers include: "WHEREAS: The design would be more appropriate in a strip mall in Queens—No, that denigrates Queens; perhaps a strip mall in New Jersey," and "WHEREAS: How many ways are there to express the Community Board's dread of this scheme?" It ends with the subcommittee's recommendation: "CB #1 begs, beseeches and urges the Landmarks Preservation Commission to throttle, dispatch and reject this application." The full board passed the resolution word-for-word, by the way.

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