Colossal Project Planned for Washington Heights

The Chetrit family is buying a Washington Heights development site with plans to construct one of the tallest residential buildings in the neighborhood.

Brothers Eli and Isaac Chetrit, along with development partner Jacob Aini, are in contract to buy 622-628 West 153rd Street, a large parcel located between Broadway and Riverside Drive, for $30 million. 

The partners intend to build a 28-story, 135,000-square-foot luxury residential project on the site, and hope to start construction in a few months.

The Chetrit family has been very active in the real estate market lately, although selling more than buying. 

Washington Heights has not seen a particularly large influx of new development in recent years, although the neighborhood is home to a handful of major projects. 

The project will join a handful of other major developments on the horizon in the uptown neighborhood, including a 22-story hotel, office, and retail project at 2420 Amsterdam Avenue being developed by Youngwoo & Associates.

A seven-story, mixed-use development at 4452 Broadway is also planned by HAP Investments. The project will have 129 apartments with 30 percent of the units set aside as affordable housing and ground floor retail space. 

MTA Project Completed During Covid-19 -- $100M Under Budget

The MTA’s dreaded repairs to the L train’s East River tunnel were completed ahead of schedule, despite the coronavirus pandemic.

Work on the Hurricane Sandy-damaged Canarsie Tunnel was initially scheduled to wrap up in July 2020 at the earliest to the tune of $500 million, but MTA officials said last year that the rehab was going so well that they expected to wrap up work by April. Transit officials say the project is being finished for nearly $100 million less than the original price tag.

“We’re finishing three months ahead of schedule, using innovative technologies and construction methods, and saving the public millions,” said Janno Lieber, Chief Development Officer and President of MTA Construction and Development.

Trains are now fully up and running, but some service reductions remain in place due to COVID-19 causing a shortage of healthy MTA workers. Subway service through the tube had been reduced to 20-minute intervals on nights and weekends while work was underway.

Over the last year MTA crews have rehabilitated swaths of saltwater-damaged concrete bench walls in the tunnel. Cables that were once within the bench wall are now hanging on metal racks installed along the tube. Workers also installed a new pumping system intended to mitigate damage of future strong storms.

Since its 2016 inception, repairs to the L train tunnel have been at the center of a raucous political drama. MTA officials initially planned a much reviled full shutdown of the L line for 15 months in what would have been one of the largest transportation disruptions in New York City’s history—derailing the commutes of 250,000 riders who rely on the line to travel between Manhattan and Brooklyn each day.

But in January 2019, Cuomo abruptly announced a series of changes to the project using new technology from Europe to make the critical repairs without closing the tunnel entirely. The governor tapped the deans of the engineering schools at Columbia and Cornell universities for their expertise in crafting the new plan.

New Yorkers, however, aren’t completely out of the woods yet when it comes to L train work. In June, the MTA plans to complete a new electrical substation to improve the frequency of service on the line and is already in the midsts of a handful of projects to improve the accessibility of stations along the L line.

But straphangers aren’t expected to fully enjoy the fruits of the MTA’s labor for many months due to the pandemic, with subway ridership falling by more than 90 percent compared to this time last year, according to MTA data. Still, MTA Chairman and CEO Patrick Foye says the early completion of the L train project is a sign that operations at the beleaguered transportation agency are heading in the right direction.

Seaport Redevelopment Plans 990-Foot Tower

As part of an integrated plan to redevelop several sites in the South Street Seaport, the Howard Hughes Corporation aims to build an up to 990-foot tower on a lot that could bring hundreds of new apartments to the neighborhood’s historic district.

The mixed-use building would rise on the edge of the historically low-rise patch of Lower Manhattan. Plans call for the transfer of more than 700,000 in unused air rights to 250 Water Street.

The development site is currently a parking lot that sits above the toxic remnants of a 19th-century thermometer factory. 

The current zoning for the Water Street lot caps development the historic district at 12 stories. 

By modifying the zoning, Howard Hughes seeks to build a red brick podium that’s contextually appropriate with the neighboring Georgian and Federal-style brick buildings, and a tower above that would soar to 990 feet, although a dual tower scenario is still an option that’s being considered.

The building’s base would feature some office and retail space, while the residential tower will bring between 550 and 700 units. It would be the district’s first project to utilize mandatory inclusionary housing—approximately 200 apartments could be set aside as affordable housing under the current proposal. 

click image to enlarge

The building would also bring with it a package of upgrades throughout the Seaport area tied to changing the Water Street site’s zoning.

Howard Hughes purchased the Water Street lot—bounded by Peck Slip and Beekman Street to the north and south, and Water and Pearl streets to the east and west—from Milstein Properties in 2018 for $180 million. 

But the developer also controls a sizable chunk of the historic Seaport under a lease with the city, including Pier 17 and the Tin Building. Among them are several hundred thousand more unused development rights. 

As part of its master plan, Howard Hughes says it would commit to making several Seaport improvements along with the zoning change that it calls “priority designated improvements.” 

Among those upgrades would include a new six-story, 30,000 square-foot building at John and South streets for the South Street Seaport Museum, which is still recovering from Hurricane Sandy, and a 75,000 square-foot, low-rise New Market building near Pier 17. 

NYC Construction Sites Returning to Life Following Covid-19

New York City construction sites are returning to life, after about 85 percent of the city’s projects were shut down because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The changes were enacted only after construction workers spoke out in mid-March over workplace conditions, including a lack of protective gear and a reluctance to enforce health measures like social distancing.

The New York Times reports that about 5,200 construction projects were operating again as of April 28. These included the Spiral office tower at Hudson Yards, One Vanderbilt near Grand Central Terminal and home renovations in Far Rockaway,

Earlier, about 85 percent of the city’s construction sites operating before the pandemic had come to a halt after the state revised its order and deemed them nonessential. “But every day hundreds of job sites have opened back up as developers, contractors and labor groups have lobbied officials to get them running again,” The Times reported.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo says that the construction industry will be among the first groups of “low-risk” businesses that will be allowed to return to normal, as soon as mid-May.

Safety measures including extensive hand-washing and tool disinfectant processes, as well as social distancing measures and revised work schedules — backed by plenty of inspections — explain how an increasing number of job sites are reactivating.

“I would have to say that the industry has evolved very rapidly to adapt to our current environment regarding the coronavirus,” Gary LaBarbera, the president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, told the Times. His group represents more than 100,000 union members.

The Times says representatives of contractors and labor unions are pushing the city to allow 24-hour construction at some locations, reducing the number of workers on sites at any one time.

COVID-19 Response: Suspension of ElectricWeb for April 2020

Issuance Date: 04/6/2020

To: Owners and Contractors

Purpose: Guidance to owners and contractors regarding enforcement of Essential vs. Nonessential construction in accordance with NYS Governor’s Executive Order 202.6 and subsequent orders, and the Guidance on Executive Order 202.6 published by NYS ESDC Item 9

Related Code/Zoning Section(s):

• AC 28-103.8
• AC 28-201.1
• New York State Gubernatorial Emergency Order 202.6 and subsequent orders and related Empire State Development Corporation guidelines
• New York City Mayoral Emergency Order 103 and subsequent mayoral emergency orders

_________________________________________________________________

In accordance with NYS Governor’s Executive Order 202.6 and the Guidance on Executive Order 202.6 and subsequent orders published by NYS ESDC Item 9, (1) All non-essential construction must shut down except emergency construction, (e.g. a project necessary to protect health and safety of the occupants, or to continue a project if it would be unsafe to allow to remain undone until it is safe to shut the site). (2) Essential construction may continue and includes roads, bridges, transit facilities, utilities, hospitals or health care facilities, affordable housing, and homeless shelters. At every site, if essential or emergency non-essential construction, this includes maintaining social distance, including for purposes of elevators/meals/entry and exit. Sites that cannot maintain distance and safety best practices must close and enforcement will be provided by the state in coordination with the city/local governments. This will include fines of up to $10,000 per violation. (3) For purposes of this section construction work does not include a single worker, who is the sole employee/worker on a job site.

Only the following construction projects permitted by the NYC Department of Buildings or otherwise regulated by the NYC Construction Codes and the NYC Electrical Code shall be permitted to continue until further notice. This guidance does not apply to construction on roads, bridges, and transit facilities that is allowable under the Governor’s Executive Orders and ESDC Guidance.

Melanie E. La Rocca

Commissioner

280 Broadway (7th Floor)

New York, NY 10007

Tel 212 393 2002

www.nyc.gov/buildings

1. Emergency construction (ESDC Item 9, bullet 1):

a. Project necessary to protect the health and safety of the occupants:

i. Emergency work ordered by the Department;

ii. Restoration of essential services – heat, hot water, cold water, gas, electricity, or other utility services; or

iii. Work necessary to address any condition requiring immediate corrective action that severely affects life, health, safety, property, or significant number of persons.

b. Project required to continue to the extent it would be unsafe to allow work to remain undone. Such project may continue only until it is safe to shut the site.

2. Essential construction (ESDC Item 9, bullet 2):

a. Utilities;

b. Hospitals or health care facilities;

c. Transitional and/ or Homeless shelters;

d. Affordable housing: Construction work on public housing, or a private or multiple dwelling or real property that is a new building (NB) or that is 100% vacant; or is work on unoccupied public housing units for the designation as housing for specific populations (i.e. shelter set aside, domestic violence referrals), or work on the exterior to address emergency conditions requiring immediate corrective action, set forth in Section 1(a)(iii) or within public housing, correction of critical systems for seasonal preparedness for the 2020-2021 heating season of an existing public housing building. Construction work on a private or multiple dwelling or real property that is a new buildin (NB) or that is 100% vacant that is now used or will be converted to such use: (i) For the provisio of affordable inclusionary housing or mandatory inclusionary housing pursuant to the New Yor city zoning resolution; or (ii) Where no less than 30% of the residential units are subject to a regulatory agreement, restrictive declaration, or similar instrument with a local, state, or federal governmental entity or a local housing authority in a city with a population of one million or more.

e. Other essential construction as approved by the Department.

3. Work that is limited to a single worker, who is the sole employee/worker on a job site (ESDC Item 9, bullet 3)

                                          ALL OTHER WORK TO CEASE

All other construction and demolition work permitted by the NYC Department of Buildings or otherwise regulated by the NYC Construction Codes and the NYC Electrical Code shall cease and comply with Buildings Bulletin 2020-004.

All complaints from the public or workers should be directed to 311 where a Class “A” complaint will be generated for DOB to address.

For a determination that work is either essential or emergency work in accordance with New York State Gubernatorial Emergency Order 202.6 and subsequent orders and related Empire State Development Corporation guidelines shall be submitted to the Department in a form and manner acceptable to the Department.

Reference: 

NYS Governor’s Executive Order 202.6 (MARCH 30, 2020 at 11:00 AM)

COVID-19 Response: Suspension of all work on non-essential construction sites

Master Plan for Williamsburg Waterfront Development

A new waterfront park and two mixed-use towers will soon come to the Williamsburg waterfront, north of the Domino Sugar Factory redevelopment site.

Developers Two Trees Management—also behind the Domino megaproject—unveiled a proposal to build two mixed-use towers, up to 650-feet-tall, and a six-acre park with access to the East River. The waterfront development will stretch from Grand to North 3rd street on River Street.

“We put a world-class team here together ... and really challenged ourselves to build another park with the impact and significance and social benefits as Domino Park,” said Jed Walentas, principal of Two Trees Management, at a project presentation.

The new towers will have 1,000 residential units, 250 of which will be below-market rate. They will also include a 47,000-square-foot YMCA, 30,000 square feet of retail space, and 57,000 square feet of office space.

One of the main missions of the project is to close the gap between Grand Ferry Park and the North 5th Pier to create a “continuous journey” of public space along the waterfront.

Perhaps one of the most noteworthy aspects of the project is its public waterfront park, which will have a circular esplanade extending into the East River, a sandy beach, tidal pools, a fishing pier, salt marsh, a boating cove on North 1st Street, and an amphitheater. 

There will also be community kiosks with 5,000 square feet worth of space available to community partners, kayak rental, among other things.

One of the project’s goals is to increase resiliency on the waterfront, to really expand the river in order to create a softer shoreline and have one that has active ecological benefits as well as access benefits, and part of this strategy, is really to increase resilience.

Built on the former Con Edison North First Street terminal site, the developers will seek a rezoning to get approved in the next two years, and that construction should take around five years. Two Trees recently bought the 3.5-acre site for $150 million.

Two New Residential Towers Planned for East Side

310 East 86th Street 

Another playfully designed residential building is slated to begin construction at 310 East 86th Street on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. 

Designed by ODA Architecture, the new building is reminiscent of the firm’s previous designs, which are characterized by expressive cubic features. 

The 68-unit tower will have a series of boxy setbacks and graceful cantilevers that will incorporate private outdoor spaces on the upper levels.

Plans called for a 21-story, 145,000-square-foot structure covering five neighboring parcels. 

Residential amenities include a music room, a laundry room, a children’s playroom, and a teen-oriented lounge. The building will also include ground floor retail space.

New 35-Story Residential Tower slated for Kips Bay

368 Third Avenue in Kips Bay will soon be the site of a new 35-story mixed-use residential tower. Located between East 26th Street and East 27th Street, the building is designed by SLCE Architects. 

Plans call for a 388-foot tall, 145,000-square-foot structure with 100 rental apartments, averaging around 1,110 square feet apiece.

The slender building will rise prominently over the surrounding low-rise structures, and allow it to be seen clearly from across the East River. 

Three to four apartments will cover floors 2 through 25, with two units per floor on the next six levels, and two penthouses on the top two floors. 

Amenities will feature a fitness room, a residential lounge, and a children’s playroom. The building will include 3,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor.

The property was formerly occupied by five pre-war structures that ranged from four to six stories high and housed 53 apartments which have been razed for the construction of the new tower.

Minrav Development purchased the site for $64 million and estimates a completion date in the fourth quarter of 2021. 

950 New Apartments Planned Along Gowanus Canal

A decade long plan for a barren swath of city-owned land in Gowanus will soon transform the toxic site with a mix of middle- to high-rise housing.

Gowanus Green will be a sustainable mixed-use community along the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn that will feature approximately 950 new residential units, neighborhood serving retail and community space, and a future potential school across from a new public park.

Co-developed by Jonathan Rose Companies, The Hudson Companies, The Bluestone Organization, and Fifth Avenue Committee, Gowanus Green will transform the site of a former manufactured gas plant into a resilient and environmentally healthy community that reconnects the surrounding neighborhood to the Gowanus Canal.

Gowanus Green will be comprised of six residential buildings with approximately 950 units of housing serving a wide range of incomes and needs, including housing dedicated to formerly homeless, senior and extremely low-income New Yorkers. 

The development will feature retail space along Smith Street, and neighborhood serving uses and community spaces, such as early childcare, healthcare, senior programming, and a range of space for artists and makers that reflect the neighborhood theme.

The project will feature a network of unique open spaces that connect people to the proposed esplanade and public park after the site has been fully remediated, including a pedestrian-oriented Shared Street, active and meditative Rain Gardens, and other community gathering areas. 

Gowanus Green is committed to being a sustainable, resilient and environmentally healthy community that improves site resilience, generates renewable energy, and implements innovative stormwater management strategies that reduce combined sewer overflows into Gowanus Canal.

The 5.8-acre site, bounded roughly by Smith Street and the Gowanus Canal between Nelson and Fifth streets, was once a manufactured gas plant. The coal-tar contaminated land sat empty for decades until the city acquired it, designating the plot a “public place.”

Such a provision prohibits residential development unless the land is rezoned, and neighbors who had hoped the site would largely convert into parkland with low-rise buildings were skeptical of the latest vision for the “Gowanus Green” project with seven buildings that could rise from five up to 28 stories. 

In 2008, a development team made up of Hudson Companies, Jonathan Rose Companies, Bluestone Organization, and the Fifth Avenue Committee were selected by then Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration to realize the project. Gowanus Green would be the area’s largest affordable housing development and is on the doorstep of Carroll Gardens, one of the most sought-after neighborhoods in Brooklyn.

The development will include 950 apartments, a public school, retail and community space, and a variety of resiliency measures to defend against flooding. The project could be entirely affordable, or at least have 74 percent of its units at below-market-rate. 

The Gowanus rezoning plan will boost density and encourage mix-used projects in the neighborhood. City planners expect the rezoning to create a whopping 8,200 new apartments by 2035.

“The purpose of the new density is to make it possible for people—working class folks, low- to-moderate income folks—who cannot possibly afford a unit in the district,” said City Council member Brad Lander.

The Department of Environmental Protection will oversee the remediation of the land, which is a Brownfield site due to its history as a manufactured gas plant.

Major League Soccer Stadium to be Build in the Bronx

After a seven-year search for a home for the New York City Football Club, the search appears to have ended right down the street from Yankee Stadium.

New York City Football Club’s circuitous search for a permanent home — a seven-year quest that generated frustration for the team, exasperation among its supporters and endless ridicule from rival fans in Major League Soccer — has come full circle.

The team’s owners, in conjunction with a group of local developers, are preparing an agreement with New York City that would allow the team to construct a privately financed, 25,000-seat stadium in the South Bronx as part of a development project costing more than $1 billion.

The new stadium, the anchor of a plan that will replace parking lots and an elevator parts factory with affordable housing units, a new school, a hotel and retail stores, would rise just a short walk’s distance down River Avenue from the team’s current home at Yankee Stadium.

The group of developers, which includes Jorge Madruga’s Maddd Equities, says the project has the support of Mayor Bill de Blasio and James Patchett, the president of the city’s Economic Development Corporation.

“It’s long past time to make the underutilized parking lots around Yankee Stadium into something more,” a representative for the E.D.C. said in a statement Friday. “The city has been approached by a team of affordable housing developers, the Yankees and the N.Y.C. Football Club.

“A deal has not been reached, and more conversations are needed. We are hopeful for a future where these lots can better serve the community. The first step toward achieving that is engaging the community on their needs and vision for this area.” 

 “We have been honored to call the Bronx our home for the last five years playing at Yankee Stadium, and we will keep our neighbors and our dedicated fans informed as we participate with Maddd and others in any related consultations and the public approval process,” the team said.

The stadium will be built on the current sites of one of the old parking garages currently used for Yankee games and the GAL elevator parts factory across East 153rd Street. 

In order to connect the two plots on which the stadium will sit, that block of East 153rd, from River Avenue to the Major Deegan Expressway, will become part of the playing field. An off ramp from the Deegan will be closed as well; it is set to become a pedestrian walkway to a new waterfront park.

Construction will not begin until 2022 and will take several years, making it unlikely the team would move in until the 2024 season.

The complicated plan was made possible when the Yankees’ president, Randy Levine, approached Maddd Equities, a developer that produces affordable housing in the city, and said the team would be willing to scale back its requirement for thousands of parking spaces in the immediate area of Yankee Stadium, allowing Maddd to purchase them.

The Yankees own 20 percent of N.Y.C.F.C., part of a joint venture with an investment group led by Sheik Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, a member of the royal family of Abu Dhabi, who also controls the English soccer champion Manchester City.

By purchasing the six scattered parking lots (five outdoors and one indoor structure) for $54 million, Maddd Equities will help the Bronx Parking Development Corporation, a nonprofit set up when the new Yankee Stadium was built, get out from under crippling debt, a problem that has vexed the city for years. Some of the lots will be used for the housing and some for the stadium and hotel.

Maddd and N.Y.C.F.C. also are in contract to purchase the GAL factory. They would then convey the property to the city, which would then lease the land back for the stadium. 

The project will be a tight fit, with everything tucked into a parcel of land a few blocks south of Yankee Stadium, hard by the Metro North train tracks and a short walk to the Harlem River.

A similar proposal for the site in 2018 collapsed, but this time the team and the developers are working closely with city and state officials, and expressed confidence that they would gain full approval. 

When New York City F.C. was founded in 2013, it arrived in M.L.S. with deep pockets and a public pledge to build a stadium within the city’s five boroughs. That proved to be a daunting task.

Every time a site was identified — in the Bronx, on the edges of Manhattan, in Queens or just beyond its borders — it was just as quickly ruled out, running up against one obstacle or another.

As the search dragged on, the team and its frustrated fans persevered in temporary conditions at Yankee Stadium that were far from perfect. Each time a scheduling conflict with the Yankees arose, it was the soccer team that hit the road: The team has played regular-season, cup and even playoff games on college fields at St. John’s and Fordham; hours away at Rentschler Field in East Hartford, Conn.; and even at Citi Field in Queens.

When N.Y.C.F.C. joined forces with the Yankees in 2013, it not only gave the soccer club an alliance with one of the most venerable institutions in the city, but it also gave the team access to Levine, a former deputy mayor familiar with the complex web of public and private bureaucracies in the city.

Levine was part of the search for the new stadium from the beginning. He said De Blasio, Patchett and community leaders in the South Bronx were instrumental in shepherding the project, and that Governor Andrew Cuomo’s transportation team has been helpful in opening up the waterfront.

Previous plans to build a soccer stadium for N.Y.C.F.C. in Queens or Manhattan drew widespread criticism from residents and community leaders concerned about the effects on their neighborhoods. This time, the developers said, they began with community outreach and sought input long before they presented any concrete proposals.

The affordable housing units, set to be built on several existing outdoor parking lots along River Avenue and atop the site of a current self-storage facility, will be built, owned and operated by Maddd Equities, which has built and owns about 3,000 units of affordable housing units in the Bronx.

At the core of the deal, though, are the parking lots, which have been a money-losing fiasco since the new Yankee Stadium opened in 2009. 

When the new Yankee Stadium was built, the Yankees demanded about 9,300 spaces to accommodate their fans on game days, but the team has agreed to reduce the number of spaces by about 3,000 to accommodate the new project. That reduction was made possible because more people are using public transportation and ride-share options that did not exist when the stadium opened in 2009.

“That’s what made this deal happen,” Madruga said of the Yankees’ relaxing their parking covenant. “Without the Yankees, the reality is that this deal does not happen.”