Our thoughts on tiny little Renwick Street in Hudson Square are well known, so we're very curious how sales will turn out at Renwick's new crop of luxury developments. Let's turn our attention now to architect Ismael Leyva's creation at 15 Renwick Street, the all-glass 13-story condo building named The Renwick. The project was originally set to hit the market via Core Marketing Group, but the developers apparently changed their minds, because Elliman is now driving this puppy. Accompanying the new-look website and sales office opening was last night's launch party, quite lavish for a soirée held under a tent on Renwick Street. The Patrick McMullan Agency was brought in to document the night, and some of those photos are above. Hey, who's that guy with the big smile posing next to the model? Why, it's Ismael Leyva himself, father of YVES. And, therefore, our hero. Lookin' good, Ish!
· The Renwick Fully Revealed: Hot Chicks in the Sticks [Curbed]
· Urban Camping in Hudson Square [Curbed]
· The Renwick [Official Site]
When the book on New York's development boom is written, Renwick Street should get an entire chapter. The short, narrow block—connecting Spring and Canal Streets and boxed in by Holland Tunnel traffic snarl—was rezoned for residential use a while back, and now Renwick Street, thanks to a tenuous connection to the cachet of both Soho and Tribeca, is getting all the luxury a glorified little alley can handle. Already announced: No. 22 Renwick, and its naughty across-the-street neighbor, The Renwick.
Now, on the corner of Canal Street at 2 Renwick Street, something is afoot. The low-rise auto shop has a sidewalk shed around it, and the neighboring building on Canal Street is quickly being demolished (it's right next door to Michael Imperioli's place, on the market and working on its third price cut). It should all make for an oddly-shaped development lot, and according to permits it looks like Kossar + Garry Architects will be the ones designing something for it. An application for an 11-story, 65-unit building was denied back in March. Just a minor hiccup on the way to more Renwick luxury, we're sure. Old school family-run local landowner Ponte Equities is in charge here.
· Job Filings: 2 Renwick Street [DOB]
The seven-story loft building at 533 Greenwich Street in Hudson Square is one of the more confusing/screwed up situations in all of Manhattan real estate. This year-old Post story has all the background (not much has changed since), but pretty much what's going on is that the 12 artist tenants living in this building have been on rent strike for 18 years. Various landlords have tried to get them out, but through the work of an excellent lawyer, the Loft Law "squatters" have remained. That Post story mentioned that the latest fed-up owner was trying to unload the building for $8 million, but a current listing on the Massey Knakal site asks $6.25 million for the building.
But that's not all! Apparently, the building will be auctioned off on May 13, with bids starting at $1 million. It's the auction notification that provides the building photos (the basement is seen above), which must have been taken while the very private tenants were all sleeping or lost in a painting trance or something. A source tells us that the tenants would accept a buyout of $500,000 each to leave the building, so factor in another $6 million on top of your bid if you want to make money on this mess.
· Real Estate Auctions [Williams & Williams]
A group of developers looking to rezone a swath of the Far West Village just north of Hudson Square so that the 12-story office building at 627 Greenwich Street can be converted to residential from commercial use will get their day in front of the City Planning Commission tomorrow. But—and pardon us if you've heard this one before—some locals are vehemently protesting the proposal. The five-block area, between Barrow and Clarkson Streets west of Hudson Street, were already left out of a residential rezoning in 2003, as the neighborhood fought to preserve what remains of the area's industry (it was thought that residential development would raise property values and chase off small businesses).
Scandal! One word we didn't take much notice of in the listing for yesterday's private-pool touting PriceSpotter: retain. As in, "The top 2 floors connect easily to the lower floors to house up to 4 bedrooms, or retain them as an income-producing entity." So, it's not a single-family townhouse right now? Whoops, but that didn't appear to throw off steveisacollegestudent, who commented on this Soho/Hudson Square border zone not quite being a townhouse neighborhood before nailing the correct asking price. Will the integrity of PriceSpotter ever recover? Eh, who cares, it was just an excuse to stare at that pool. Mmm, refreshment.
· Listing: 54 King Street [Elliman]
· Curbed PriceSpotter: The King of Private Pools [Curbed]
PriceSpotter is Curbed's asking price guessing game. We provide you with some details and pictures from an apartment listing, and you take a crack at the price in the comments. Tomorrow we reveal the answer. And hey, no cheating!
What/Where: Townhouse on King Street btwn Varick/Sixth Ave. Square Feet: 4,600 Taxes: Not listed The Skinny: Straddling the border of Soho and Hudson Square is this 19th Century Federal townhouse, which is slightly different than your run-of-the-mill Manhattan home. It has a freaking pool. What better property to highlight with the weather turning warm? On the inside, too, this 21-foot-wide house has gone completely modern, the smaller rooms ripped out for a more open loft-like feel. Other miscellany: four fireplaces, washer/dryer in the basement and currently configured as a 3BR. Yummy. So, whatcha guess?
· Curbed PriceSpotter archives [Curbed]
"A middle-aged woman with panic in her voice crossed Canal St. near a Holland Tunnel entrance Saturday night. 'I don’t like this neighborhood — it’s deserted,' she called out almost in desperation. If not for the headlights shining in her face on their way to enter the tunnel, and a few dim streetlights, the street would have been almost pitch black. The only store in sight, the large deli at Canal and Hudson Sts., was closed." [Downtown Express]
HUDSON SQUARE—One of the teams that took part in that awesome Envisioning Hudson Square Design Charrette, Zakrzewski + Hyde Architects and Starr Whitehouse Landscape Architects and Planners, just received the American Institute of Architects' annual Design Award for their vision, titled Hudson Square Rise. There it is up above, and you can see more detailed glimpses of the design here, here and here. Congrats! [CurbedWire Inbox]
TRIBECA—The crane is back in action at the Jack Parker site on Washington and Watts Streets, following that little booboo a few weeks back. Did the incident result in more transparency for a massive project that few know anything about? Er, no. [CurbedWire Staff]
FLUSHING MEADOWS CORONA PARK—Rarely do we get excited about the wilds of Queens, but we must tip our hat to the borough, because tomorrow morning the city's first indoor public pool built in four decades will throw open its doors. From the press release: "The Olympic-size swimming pool is housed in the new Flushing Meadows Corona Park Natatorium and Ice Rink building, which was built in partnership with the Economic Development Corporation. The contemporary building, which also houses a NHL-regulation ice rink, is largest recreation complex ever built in a City park and will serve as a year-round facility for competitive and recreational use." You know we love a good pool. [CurbedWire Inbox]
Developers looking to convert the 12-story office building at 627 Greenwich Street (shrouded PropShark photo at right) to condos have encountered a small issue: the area is a manufacturing zone. No problem! Just get it rezoned to allow residential development, right? That's precisely what they're trying to do, reports the Downtown Express, but the north end of Hudson Square/southern edge of the West Village was already left out of a residential rezone once in 2003, and neighborhood advocates want to preserve some industry in the area. Well, unless the clowns come. Then everyone won't be able to get out of there soon enough. A group calling itself the Greenwich Village Task Force is leading the charge against the north-end rezoning, arguing that residential development will raise property values too high to keep anyone in the area in business. Which means expect the 'hood to be draped in Chase and Starbucks by this time next year.
· Hudson Square’s north end is eyed again for a rezoning [Downtown Express]
The real estate arm of Trinity Church is nearly done enforcing the wrath of a vengeful God over at 417-423 Canal Street, at Varick. It was not long ago that this act was begun, but things move fast down in Hudson Square. Up next up for the site is a brand new office building, maybe. But there's still a bit of dirty work left to be done. Church smash! Church destroy!
As we discussed last week, this December we're hosting The Curbed Cup, a 16-neighborhood reader-voted tournament to name Curbed, Eater, and Racked's Neighborhood of the Year for 2007. After pouring over nearly 200readernominations, and comparing notes at Curbed HQ, we're almost ready for this thing to officially get underway tomorrow. But before that, today we have two preliminary votes for your consideration this afternoon. The winners of these votes will become the No. 15 and No. 16 seeds in the tournament, with the full bracket to be revealed tomorrow.
Here's today's first preliminary round play-in, an epic faceoff between two very Square places. After the jump, the respective neighborhood highlights and lowlights of 2007. So who's more worthy of consideration for NYC's neighborhood of 2007, Hudson Square or Hell Square? Polls close at 9am tomorrow.
The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. We've known about the impending doom of 417-423 Canal Street for a while, and now Hudson Square landmaster Trinity Church has finally begun the dirty deed. Rumors of an office tower persist, but let's take a moment to bow our heads and observe a moment of silence, for we are all God's creatures.
Our friends at the Envisioning Hudson Square Design Charrette, currently on display at the St. Johns Center at 550-570 Washington Street, have sent us some more mind-altering dreamscapes for the future of Hudson Square. Last time around, we had a look at some aerial views of the 'hood. Now, the five architecture firms involved in the project tackle the problem of Washington Street, which is dominated by the massive UPS complex near Pier 40. What to (hypothetically) do? Why, elevate the block above UPS and green it up, of course! What we would give to just have one of these pretty pictures come true.
For those who like their visions of urban planning conceptual and cool-as-all-hell, we give you the Envisioning Hudson Square Design Charrette, an exhibit of architecture porn that begins on Monday at the St. Johns Center at 550-570 Washington Street. You can read all the background stuff over in the Downtown Express, but basically what the Friends of Hudson Square have done is recruit five leading architectural firms to come up with whatever they want for the area between Leroy and Canal Streets, and Hudson Street to the river. The area is going through much change, of course, with Pier 40 and rezoning and sanitation proposals and all that fun stuff. Envisioning Hudson Square, which runs through November 21, is meant to get people thinking about what the long-term future holds for this fledgling little 'hood.
The organizers were kind enough to send us an aerial rendering from each of the firms involved. All of these images, as well as many many more, will be on display at the St. Johns Center. Again, the architecture firms didn't have to worry about actually getting these plans approved, so they were free to really go nuts. Above is our favorite, Arquitectonica's vision that includes salt-harvesting islands and ribbons of green space that represent the area's printing press past. Pretty freaking awesome.
In answer to last week's CurbedWire report of an assemblage of properties on "the west edge of Soho," the most important thing is that Sleepy's at 176 Sixth Avenue will remain. Preservationists rejoice! That big plastic sign shall be spared! But no such luck for three 19th Century brick walk-ups which lie just to the north of the mattress emporium. There are four lots in question--numbers 180, 182, 184 and 186 Sixth Avenue. All have been bought up by tower-loving developer Gary Barnett under the corporate name of SoHo Love, LLC. So how much love is Gary going to give?
We first noted architect Peter Poon about six months back when his homage to dryvit made its appearance just south of Times Square. This week, we were reminded of Poon again, with his troublesome new hotel going up on Watts Street. That's the blue metallic one above, hovering over Kool Bloo as it rises in Hudson Square. After visiting the Peter Poon Architects website, we just can't get Mr. Poon out of our minds.
Things are hopping in Hudson Square, and it's not just the new Trumppalace of peek-a-boo, about which we will have a great deal very shortly. That blue metal thing rising over Watts Street at the right in the photo above is a the new Peter Poon hotel, unpopular before it has even opened. In between those two sites, at 100 Varick Street, four old buildings are being demo-ed to make way for something new. Will the building in the rendering be what goes up on this busy block between Watts and Broome? Seems it's anybody's guess.
Now that the little legal bump is behind them, the team working on the ever-rising Trump Soho condo-tel in Hudson Square is moving full steam ahead. A few days back, a swarm of creative types gathered on the sidewalk across from the construction site where 15 floors of concrete and steel designed by Handel Architects have gone up. The occasion? Viewing samples of glass with a "metal-mesh interlayer" that might drape the 42 stories.
The centuries-old Trinity Church is kicking it into high-gear when it comes to doing the Lord's work, and by doing the Lord's work, we of course mean developing Hudson Square. The nabe's biggest landlord has been up to something on Canal Street, and now Charles Bagli reports in the Times that the church is leasing out an eight-story warehouse on Hudson Street—which we're guessing is 324-344 Hudson (right), but it's difficult because Trinity owns so freakin' much—to developer Tribeca Associates. The plan is to build a 14-story brick tower on top of the warehouse, and turn it into the mixed-use cocktail du jour: retail/office space/luxury hotel. The top two floors of the 171-room hotel would have floor-to-ceiling glass, a pool and an event space. Construction begins this month, God willing.
· Office-Hotel Is Planned in Old Haven of Printing [NYT]
· Trinity Church Throws a Teardown Party on Canal [Curbed]
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TRIBECA—The crane is back in action at the Jack Parker site on Washington and Watts Streets, following that little 
Developers looking to convert the 12-story office building at 627 Greenwich Street (shrouded 
The centuries-old Trinity Church is kicking it into high-gear when it comes to doing the Lord's work, and by doing the Lord's work, we of course mean developing Hudson Square. The nabe's biggest landlord has been 
