Results tagged “condos”

Of course it is — in private residences. So sure enough some condo developers are betting they can move some units by putting a "poker lounge" in the basement of their building at 254 Park Avenue South. "254PAS", which is so cool and just rolls off the tongue, has their own website, a great study in campy advertising, though of course we apologize to those people (unavoidable in this city, I'm afraid) who will find it really cool.

While Williamsburg sits stagnant in a confused state of purgatory, the abandoned and stalled luxury condos have become a haven for one group: the gutter punks. The Daily News gives the group a two-story treatment today, saying the "heroin-addict hobos from around the country are overrunning" the area. And as with every other newcomer to the Brooklyn neighborhood, they're hated by those who came before them.

Doesn't your heart just bleed for the luckless developers who saturated our fair city with luxury condos on the eve of this catastrophic economic collapse? Despite a concerted effort by brokers to manufacture the illusion that they're making sales, industry insiders tell The Real Deal that "little or no sales activity has taken place since the fall of Lehman Brothers in September." One top dog at a residential brokerage firm says "sales of condominiums in buildings which are not in final stages of completion of units are far and few," and at least 10% of scheduled closings are falling through because of purchasers' inability to secure mortgage financing. And some buildings, like Magic Johnson's nearly-complete Viridian monstrosity in Greenpoint (pictured), are switching to rental. But really, shouldn't they all just skip the formality and go straight to squat?

The Real Deal reports that, according to the Federal Reserve's "Beige Book," Manhattan co-op and condo sale prices have "fallen by 15 to 20 percent since mid-summer, though it is hard to get a clear handle on prices due to thin volume. Much of the recent activity is reportedly from desperate sellers." Sales volume was also apparently off by 28% for the first three quarters of 2008, and appraiser Jonathan Miller explains, "A drop in transactions always precedes a drop in prices, because it leads to [an] increase in inventory. It's really a canary in the subway." Still, some brokers are trying to insist business is picking up, with open house attendance rising recently—which some Curbed commenters question.

Now that hipsters have gentrified the neighborhood, the Times is reporting that a new group is moving into Williamsburg and undoubtedly endearing themselves just as much to longtime New Yorkers--immigrating Europeans. Europeans have accounted for one-third of those who have scooped up the 2,000 new condos in Williamsburg in the last two years. Europeans say the neighborhood resembles the areas they left behind--like Brighton in England and Marais in Paris. They also find its residents less career-driven than Manhattanites. One Brit who hangs out at the bar Spike Hill tells the paper, “There isn’t that same kind of talk about money and jobs. People leave work at work. It’s more like friends back home.”

The new director of Columbia's Graduate School of Architecture's Historic Preservation Program has interesting thoughts on how new construction will be affected by the faltering economy in today's NY Times. Based on the past, Andrew S. Dolkart thinks commercial skyscraper construction will stop and there will be more preservation, "I think new construction is going to take a nose dive — especially residential, because we’ve been so overbuilt in fringe areas of the city, and I think a lot of new residential buildings are going to have a lot of trouble." He was amazed at a luxury apartment project between Clinton Hill and Bed-Stuy, "I was thinking, even then, a couple of years ago, why would I spend a million dollars to live on the corner of Quincy and Franklin Streets, which is basically in the middle of nowhere? It’s not really in a neighborhood at all." Maybe that's why some developments are offering "price protection guarantees" to buyers (if the price drops after they buy, they get it at the lowest price)?

Architect Richard Meier told NY magazine, when asked about the real estate market in the next year or so, "I think there will be a lot of empty apartments." Meier's NYC designs include the Perry Street towers and a big building at Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza, which he says is 60% sold, but "the next 40% will go slowly." Luckily, he pointed out, "I'm just the architect." Meier previously told the Observer, back in September (the day Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy), "I don't know how to deal with it or what it means. Certainly, it's going to have a serious effect on my work."

Yesterday the Domino Sugar Factory opened up their waterfront space to the public for an Open House of sorts, but much to the dismay of those who showed up the buildings were not accessible (likely because they're unsafe, with old machinery around and floors are covered in mollases). The rendering for the future Domino homes can be seen here, and for those who still want to take a gander at the current indoor space, some photos from last year are here.

Back in 2006, the New York Historical Society was seeking $10 million for a renovation of their 170 Central Park West building (fair enough) and a developer to finance and build not only a 5-story annex at 7-13 West 76th Street but a $100 million, 23-story glass condo complex behind the museum! Today the NY Times reports that the controversial idea has been abandoned, and the Society has let go of their lofty ideas. Instead, they'll spend $55 million and three-years on renovating their galleries, entrance and facade. Some local preservationists say the NYHS has helped preserve their character with the move...but will history repeat itself? As Curbed notes, they also had a similar proposal in 1984 -- so they may just try, try again.

When the Bloomberg administration successfully rezoned large parts of Williamsburg and Brooklyn three years ago to facilitate the construction of massive housing condos, the deal came with a promise to deliver lots of new park space. But while the luxury residential buildings are going up, the parks have remained a pipe dream. And local City Councilman David Yassky tells the Post he’s “sickened” that the Bloomberg administration has made “almost zero progress on the parks.”

       

Street artist Dan Witz has some entertaining pieces around town, mostly on condo walls in Brooklyn and the Lower East Side. Imagine buying the luxury condo of your dreams only to discover one of these alarming scenarios. Witz explains his series, Ugly New Buildings:

In the past few years much of my neighborhood in Brooklyn has been torn down to make way for luxury housing. For better or worse it's a whole new street-scape out here. Personally, I can't say I like the new modern architecture very much, it's so arrogantly disconnected with the neighborhood that it's just plain bizarre. I miss the crooked old frame houses and grungy bodegas. Sometimes I wonder about the people who lived their lives here and were forced to move. I realize that to them a street artist like me is probably part of the problem, but still I wanted them to know someone misses them.

The cast iron facades, high ceilings, and wide-open floor plans that made the neighborhood so desirable as a place for artists, and later well-heeled residents, are rooted in SoHo's industrial past. It was a neighborhood of factories and manufacturing. That era has passed, however, and after more than a century in business, John De Lorenzo and Bro., Iron and Sheet Metal Contractor closed their shop this week. It will be converted to a building housing luxury condos.

Earlier there was news of a luxury condo leveling a church and digging up graves, now word is in that the South Williamsburg power plant on Kent Avenue will meet the same fate. The Brooklyn Paper reports that Con Edison has finally admitted its plan to demolish the defunct power plant and neighborhood landmark.

Neighbors of the abandoned Kent Avenue power plant knew something was up back in March, when workers started tearing holes into the 102-year-old red brick building, which has been inactive since the late 1990s.

Brownstoner has done the math and concluded that there are a ridiculous number of hotels going up near Brooklyn’s lovely Gowanus Canal. The latest new development will be a nine story Fairfield Inn on Third Avenue between Douglass and Butler streets; construction will begin once existing buildings are torn down. So that makes a future grand total of 7 hotels in the Gowanus neighborhood; three already built and four more on the way.

Harlem resident met with city planners in a public forum yesterday afternoon to discuss whether a major rezoning plan will enhance the historic neighborhood or rip out its heart. The zoning plan, covering 124th, 125th, and 126th Streets, paves the way for condos, a 21-story office tower, a hotel, and more.

         

The conversion of an 85-acre stretch of Brooklyn waterfront from post-industrial decay to pristine park is continuing apace, as bulldozers have begun demolishing the hulking warehouses that have barred access to the East River for years. But a Sierra Club lawsuit could yet stall the long-planned urban renewal project, and outcry from some community groups remains undiminished.

A married couple in the Upper West Side's Ansonia Building are suing their neighbor over her smoking. They claim her smoking is adversely affecting the hallway environment and the health of their four-year-old boy.

On Sunday Gowanus Lounge received frantic emails from tenants in a blocklong loft building at 475 Kent Avenue in South Williamsburg who were being suddenly tossed out into the frigid night by the FDNY; we went to the building on Monday morning and talked to some of the shell-shocked residents as they moved out, one of whom told us, “Sheila [Properties] owns the whole lot and I don’t want to speculate but there’s a reason they want to empty the whole lot.”

The Cedar Tavern has been closed for over a year now, and someday soon New Yorkers will finally get more of what they so desperately need: more condo units priced at $1.7 million and up! The famous tavern on University Place, long associated with the drunken hi-jinks of notables like Jackson Pollock and Jack Kerouac, shut down in December 2006 for “renovations” and never reopened. Promises to come back as part of the nine-story condo have gone unfulfilled; owner Michael Diliberto told The Real Deal:

“Cedar is past. Cedar is history. It means something to me. It doesn't mean something to the next generation." Diliberto and his late older brother Joe initially envisioned condos on top of the Cedar Tavern, but plans to reopen the pub were abandoned when Joe was diagnosed with fatal cancer and died two months ago. The bar closed shortly afterwards, on the day after Thanksgiving 2006.