TRIBECA—A special Curbed correspondent found that the fence was going up this morning at the triange park below Canal Street at Varick that will become CaVaLa Park, which will come complete with its own faux canal. Get those picnic baskets ready. [CurbedWire Inbox]
WORLD TRADE CENTER—Reaction to the very elongated and unclear time line for the World Trade Center project have been less than enthusiastic today, and then there's developer Larry Silverstein's statement: "As of today, my company's projects – Towers 2, 3 and 4 – are fully designed and on schedule. Construction of Towers 3 and 4 is underway, and all three buildings are slated for completion, as projected, by the end of 2012. As demonstrated by the success of 7 World Trade Center, as well as other recent developments in the area, Downtown is energized like never before. It is vital that we maintain that momentum and finish the rebuilding.” [CurbedWire Inbox]
WILLIAMSBURG—We thought that the Toll Brothers North8 development on Kent Avenue had already gained all of its Temporary Certificates of Occupancy, given that the first was issued at the beginning of the year, but apparently not. A tipster writes: "The rest of the building finally got the TCO. Only half the residents have been able to move in so far. The original move in dates ranged from January 2007-August 2007. I guess a year and half late is not so bad for a 6 story building." [CurbedWire Inbox]
Google is an ambitious company, but are they flying a little off the handle by opening up their Street View mapping feature for Williamsburg and Long Island City? The look of both neighborhoods changes completely every three months or so in these development hot spots, as new buildings climb toward the sky and others get completed. Should Google have waited before sending out their platoon of roving camera cars to snap pictures of these 'hoods? Pictures that now, because it's Google, are outsiders' definitive views of these areas? Perhaps, but it's not like the market is going to collapse in the next couple of years and developers will back off. (Right? RIGHT??? Oh God somebody please tell us if it is!) But since the service is live, we decided to dial up some of Williamsburg's and LIC's most-hyped new developments, just to check up on how recent Google's photos are. Our assessment: not bad, but Google should probably pony up for a new round of photos in a year or so.
· Google Maps [maps.google.com]
Are Brooklyn developer websites for controversial projects the latest thing? Well, the Toll Brothers have just launched a site for their 460-unit development on the Gowanus Canal. It intends to give the developer a kinder, gentler face in a neighborhood where there has been what could politely be called some hostility. Per a release accompanying the launch of the site, tollbrothersgowanus.com, it "will provide updates and information to the Gowanus community throughout the planning, zoning review and, if the project is approved in ULURP, construction phases, and will allow members of the public to send comments and suggestions to the development team." Last month, the developer of the 360 Smith Street project also launched a site to keep residents posted, albeit much later in the process. The site has sections outlining the project plans, a "calender of events" (currently listing events that happened in March), a press section and a contact form so that residents can, you know, make suggestions to the firm.
At the corner of Third Avenue and 14th Street in the uppermost reaches of the East Village, demolition is underway to clear space for an 18-story apartment building. The Toll Brothers' One Ten 3rd made this block safe for fancypants development, and it looks like this new building will head in that direction as well. According to the approved building permit, the developer is Andrew Bradfield's Orange Management (of No. 22 Renwick), and indeed their website now carries a small teaser image of 123 Third Avenue. The architect is Perkins Eastman. The building will have 45 units and a retail tenant on the ground floor, which we've covered before. The Winick listing for the retail space now says that the space has been leased, most likely not to any of the previous tenants on this corner, a list that includes a deli, tanning salon, the grungiest juice bar ever and a seedy upstairs porn shop.
· Orange Management [orangemgmt.com]
· 123 Third Avenue Starts to Take Shape [Curbed]
· Rumblings & Bumblings Responses: Gourmet's Goodbye [Curbed]
LOWER EAST SIDE—Earlier, we pointed you to a Sunarticle about the planned recreation of a Keith Haring mural that the New York icon painted on a wall at the northwest corner of Houston Street and the Bowery in 1982. Lordy, the artists enlisted to paint the sucker sure are acting quick! Above, the wall as seen earlier this afternoon. [CurbedWire Inbox]
WILLIAMSBURG & LONG ISLAND CITY—Those unpredictable Toll Brothers are offering up another one of their ridiculously short-term sales. It's much like an old one, but this time around, purchase a condo at Northside Piers, North8 or Fifth Street Lofts by Friday, April 25, and you'll save $20,000 on closing costs. [CurbedWire Inbox]
SEAPORT—What will spring up on 80 South Street now that Santiago Calatrava's Tower o' Penthouses have passed on? Yet to be determined, and first the land must be sold. A press release fresh into the inbox states that Newmark Knight Frank Capital Group has been retained as the broker for the site, and offers are due by May 8. The 8,128sqft parcel is expected to fetch around $115 million. [CurbedWire Inbox]
We've heard our share of Toll Brothers discussions in the context of Manhattan and Brooklyn, but today we travel across the river to Jersey City where the final stages of a development fight over the Powerhouse Arts District are playing out. Earlier this year, the Toll Brothers got unanimous approval from the local planning board to put up three high rises in the district. The development--which will include buildings of 30, 35 and 40 stories--apparently tosses the original plan for the Arts District in the trash, although it will include a 550-seat theater. One of the issues is the fate of the historic Manischewitz matzo factory, which local preservationists want saved (the Tolls will save two walls of the building).
Northside Piers' pier is coming along. The "East River jetty now sports a sharp-looking stainless steel railing and an assortment of benches and small tables. No obvious sign of a water-taxi launch from our vantage point." So, like, when are the Toll Brothers going to open up the waterfront to public access? [INSIJS]
A team from developer Toll Brothers brought their big Gowanus project before a community audience a few blocks from the Carroll Gardens site last night for a session remarkably devoid of fireworks, given previously expressed hostility in the neighborhood. The firm is trying to gain special zoning approval from the city apart from the overall Gowanus rezoning. Toll VP for Development David Von Spreckelsen explained that the firm is pushing for city approval because there is only a year-and-a-half left in the Bloomberg administration, and "we're not sure if that rezoning will happen" before the end of his term.
Asked about the softening real estate market, Mr. Von Spreckelsen said that the firm is "committed to the project" and that "we'd love to go forward" with it. The development would have 447 units of housing, about 140 of which would be affordable rental units developed by L&M Equity. GreenbergFarrow is the project architect. The development would sit on raised ground because of flooding issues around the Gowanus Canal, and it would be LEED certified, feature its own storm sewer system with holding tanks, and have a public esplanade/park on the water. Toll hopes the land-use review process for the development will start before summer.
· Toll Brothers Big Gowanus Project Revealed [Curbed]
· Reps from Toll Brothers Detail Big Gowanus Development [Brownstoner]
· Gowanus Organizing to Block Toll Brothers Project [Curbed]
That big Toll Brothers proposal for condos on the Gowanus Canal is starting to make its way through the review process. One of the more interesting documents sent to the Department of City Planning comes from Community Board 6, which blasts it for being "overwhelming" compared to the rest of the neighborhood and "in direct conflict" with some of the city's own planning goals for the neighborhood. The document lists a long history of industrial uses for the Toll property that means it is contaminated with lead, heavy metals and oil among other things. The Community Board says the city needs to consider the project's impact in the context of the big Public Place plans, development of condos on Fourth Avenue and other planed Gowanus projects. On the olfactory front, it notes that condo buyers might have to put up with years of, uh, crappy smells coming off the Gowanus as a flushing tunnel is shut down, causing--check out the wording here--a situation "incompatible with simultaneous residential habitation proximate to the canal." We believe this is planning-speak for saying it's going to smell like shit around the time the Toll Brothers condos come on the market.
· Toll Brothers Gowanus Project: Zoning, Toxins & Shadows [Gowanus Lounge]
· Written Testimony on Toll Gowanus Project (WARNING: PDF) [brooklync6.org]
· Gowanus Organizing to Block Toll Brothers Project [Curbed]
The screencap above is from a video that happens when Lizzie Grubman Public Relations does some PR that intersects with the Toll Brothers. It's what the interviewer keeps describing as the "press junket" for Brooklyn Fashion Weekend, aka a press reception in the Toll Brothers sales trailer on the Northside Piers property. (Sorry no embed, but click here to watch and turn the sound down because it starts when the page loads).
The Toll Brothers Northside Piers development in Williamsburg has had a milestone moment today. A tipster emailed to note that the 29-story building had been granted a Temporary Certificate of Occupancy today, writing "BURG HERE WE COME." About 70 percent of the units in the building have sold. [Dept. of Buildings BIS; previously]
LONG ISLAND CITY—Several emails have landed in the inbox today about PriceChopping at Fifth Street Lofts in Long Island City. 5SL fans will recall a Limited Edition Price Chop, a Price Upper and a Not So Limited Edition Chop. Here's a detailed one: "I see price cuts on some units of $50,000 effective 3/14/08. If they could hold the price still for few weeks together I can decide what these apartment are worth. Up and Down and Up and Down again. I guess these decisions are made at the corporate level at Toll Brothers. 22 apartments for sale for a long time. I wonder when the last contract was signed." Streeteast shows some units PriceChopped and some PriceHiked, so let's just call it general 5SL PriceMadness. [CurbedWire Inbox]
SOHO—The Puck Building is getting a new lobby with Gerner, Kronick + Valcarcel Architects doing the design duties and construction starting next month. Per an announcement, "the project’s specific focus is the lobby and refurbishment of antique elevator cages. Plans include concrete panels for walls and ceilings and two lobby walls done up by a glass artist [CurbedWire Inbox]
PLG—A lot of people have a lot of opinions about the 20-story glass tower planned near Prospect Park, but what about the birds? A reader emails, "Has anyone calculated how many dead birds this new structure will cause sitting as it is in one of the most important bird migration routes in the tri-state area?" [CurbedWire Inbox]
Aesthetic issues aside, the Toll Brothers' One Ten 3rd in the East Village was a big hit, so it's not surprising that the developers are looking to strike again in Manhattan. And while the Tolls can be a little secretive (Bob Toll on his massive Gowanus project in the Observer this week: "I'm not going to say."), The Real Deal has the scoop on TB's next "Urban Living" location: 303 East 33rd Street, at the corner of Second Avenue. Not the most glam location, but the Tolls will go wherever there's money to be made, and Murray Hill is hot on new buildings right now. The 130-unit condo building will go on sale in the spring or summer, with completion planned in the fall of 2009. The deal is a partnership with Kibel Company, which currently owns the site (above). Interestingly, Cantor Pecorella will handle sales and marketing, even though Halstead has marketed all of the Toll Brothers' New York City projects to date. Are the Tolls looking to shake things up a little?
· Kibel, Toll Bros. plan Murray Hill condo [TRD]
Yesterday, workers were busy getting the new Edge sales office at N. 6 Street and Kent Avenue in Williamsburg ready. Meanwhile, the Times was proclaiming that sales of the 575 units in a 15-story and 30-story tower "may be a good barometer of the state of the New York real estate market over the next year or more." Which is a pretty heavy expectation to lay one one development, even if it's a big, high-profile one. What will make it even more interesting, of course, is that The Edge will be going head to head with Northside Piers, which is going to put a second tower on the market, possibly as early as this spring, even though 30 percent of the 180 units in the first 29-story tower still haven't sold and there have been PriceChops. The developers of the Edge say they've learned from the Toll Brothers and are be marketing more studios and one bedrooms and there will be amenities like that hot pool. Sales will start next month. The Toll Brothers, meanwhile, don't see the competition as a death match, saying that Edge buyers that come to Kent Avenue will also take a look at Northside Piers. We can't wait to see the lineup of sales people on Kent Avenue trying to snag buyers for both sales offices, which are a block apart.
· A Barometer in Williamsburg [NYT]
· Burg Throwdown! The Edge vs. Northside Piers [Brownstoner]
· More New Look Williamsburg: The Edge Revealed [Curbed]
It looks like that big Toll Brother development on the shores of the Gowanus Canal might be facing some resistance in the neighborhood. Last night, an overflow crowd showed up to strategize about opposing the 577-unit project and run through a list of objections from the height of the buildings and no room in local schools to toxic contamination of the site and sewage issues. Toll VP David Von Spreckleson attended and said that purchase of the site is dependent on getting a rezoning from the city. The developer is looking for a go ahead before the overall rezoning of the neighborhood to allow residential development in a large area. The city will be offering up a draft zoning planning for Gowanus by the end of spring or early summer. The Toll Brothers are looking for a 6-12 month head start on that process, possibly betting that the neighborhood rezone won't be finished before the Bloomberg Administration leaves office. Neighborhood blogger PMFA described the Toll Brothers reps as getting "a bit testy when asked if they would reconsider and abandon the project if the neighborhood was against it." One of them apparently asked if the neighborhood would prefer a dirty canal to development and "quite a few people said yes," PMFA noted. A technical hearing on the proposal takes place on March 13.
· They Will Build It, But Will They Clean It? [PMFA]
· Meeting on Toll Proposal: Educate, Agitate, Organize [Brownstoner]
· Toll Brothers Big Gowanus Proposal Revealed [Curbed]
Now the Toll Brothers are just messing with us. Two weeks ago, it was the limited-edition PriceChop at Fifth Street Lofts. Last week, it was the whole building. And now this week, just to confuse matters more, the units' prices have been raised back to pre-chop levels, according to StreetEasy. We always knew Long Island City would drive us crazy, we just didn't know that the mission would have been accomplished so easily.
Meanwhile, there was also some PriceUpping at Crescent Club, long a Curbed favorite for its outdoor pool, project views and nice set of balls. What's up over at Queens Plaza? Well, we'll tell you. StreetEasy also showed increases on some two dozen or so units, just before a bunch of them went into the ol' "listings in contract" category. Curious. Curious...ly awesome, that is, which is precisely how we feel about Long Island City. Folks, we are feeling the heat.
· Feeling LIC's Heat, Part I: All Hail Duane Reade [Curbed]
· Feeling LIC's Heat, Part II: Panorama Edition [Curbed]
Proposals to totally end the condo tax break known as the 421a, which dramatically reduces property taxes, went nowhere two years ago. But a complicated set of restrictions creating exclusion zones where developers have to include affordable housing to get the tax break were put in place. The new rules don't even take effect until summer and have set off a scramble to beat the deadline by starting buildings before they're subject to the restriction. Now, the development community is saying the issue needs to be revisited when the city reviews the "impact" of the changes in December. The early indication is they're going to push hard to kill the changes. For instance, Toll Brothers VP David Von Spreckelsen, who normally talks up the market, tells the Sun:
In a market like this, the legislation fails in every respect. Banks are taking a harder look at the financing of development, land prices are decreasing in the boroughs, and construction costs are increasing...We are going to see the impact.
This cheesy graphic looks familiar, no? That's because it was this time last week when we were sitting around discussing the limited edition PriceChop at the Toll Brothers' Fifth Street Lofts building in Long Island City. For one week only, a two-bedroom unit was trimmed $34,000, down to $979,990. Well, that deal may have expired on Monday, but that wasn't the end of the savings. Fifteen of 5SL's 22 active listings were chopped this week, by a variety of amounts ranging from $32,000 to $86,000. The gory details are up on StreetEasy for perusal. Curiously, that 2BR from last week did indeed have its price raised back to the original ask of $1,013,990. Oh Toll Brothers, why must you mess with our minds?!
· Listings: Fifth Street Lofts [Halstead]
· Curbed Limited Edition PriceChopper: Fifth Street Lofts [Curbed]
· Checking In: LIC's Fifth Street Lofts Looking Ready to Rock [Curbed]
There are some odd rumblings about coming out of Carroll Gardens and Gowanus where residents are still digesting the plans revealed last week for the Toll Brothers development on the shores of the Gowanus and talking about "a movement" to block the project. Together with the Public Place project that would add 1,000 or so apartments and condos to the neighborhood, the total of new units could be 1,700 or more. Another two projects including the Gowanus Village once planned by developer Shaya Boymelgreen on the eastern shore of the canal and two 10-12 story buildings that might be built on the site of an oil depot further north near the Union Street bridge, could add another 1,000-1,500 units. (That's assuming that serious toxic issues can be overcome.) One resident says "People are mighty pissed off. There is a movement afloat." The Toll Brothers are looking for special zoning for a "mixed use district" before the overall neighborhood rezoning. The plan for the project was revealed as part of that process.
· New "Movement" Developing in Gowanus & Carroll Gardens? [GL]
· The Race to Develop a Toxic Waterway [Gotham Gazette]
· Toll Brothers Big Gowanus Project Revealed [Curbed]
Comments
We've heard our share of Toll Brothers discussions in the context of Manhattan and Brooklyn, but today we travel across the river to Jersey City where the final stages of a development fight over the Powerhouse Arts District are playing out. Earlier this year, the Toll Brothers got unanimous approval from the local planning board to put up three high rises in the district. The development--which will include buildings of 30, 35 and 40 stories--apparently tosses the original plan for the Arts District 
Proposals to totally end the condo tax break known as the 421a, which dramatically reduces property taxes, went nowhere two years ago. But a complicated set of restrictions creating exclusion zones where developers have to include affordable housing to get the tax break were put in place. The new rules don't even take effect until summer and have set off a scramble to beat the deadline by starting buildings before they're subject to the restriction. Now, the development community is saying 
