Results tagged “olympicvillage”

What an embrace of Long Island City! The city announced that it will buy waterfront property in Long Island City to build up to 5,000 units of affordable housing for families. The city is paying the Port Authority a total of $146 million for the 24 acres - $100 million for the property and $46 million for "remaining obligations" to the site. From the press relase:

Mayor Bloomberg: "Middle-income families are facing housing affordability challenges as a result of New York's success, and we have to make strategic, long-term investments to ensure that New Yorkers of all incomes can work and live in our City. This development will build on New York's grand tradition of major middle-income communities, but updated for the 21st century. We will work quickly to turn this into homes for thousands of teachers, police officers, firefighters, nurses and other moderate- and middle-income New Yorkers. I want to thank the Port Authority for its continued collaboration and support."

Continue reading "LIC: From Olympic Village to Affordable City Housing"

Mayor Bloomberg announced an ambitious plan to build or renovate over 100,000 homes for low- and middle-income residents. The fact that this is very similar to his political rival Fernando Ferrer's proposed affordable housing plan was not lost on Ferrer. The Mayor's plan is a change from his original 68,000-unit, $3.5 billion plan (the new plan would cost $7.5 billion) and highlights the fact that affordable housing might be the biggest issue in this year's election. Some of the areas cited for new homes as well as inclusionary zoning (developers can build their big apartment buildings if lower-income homes are included) are Hunts Point in Queens (where the Olympic Village would have been), Greenpoint and Williamsburg, western Chelsea, and the Hudson railyards, according to the NY Times. Hilarious: It's only taken the mayor years to figure this one out.

Los Angeles architect Thom Mayne has been awarded the Pritzker Prize, the highest honor in the field of architecture. Gothamist guesses that the awesome design for the Caltrans District 7 building in downtown L.A. tipped it in his favor this year (here's a profile of the building, see some work in progress photos here), but he's had a very storied career. As for Mayne's NYC projects, with his firm Morphosis, Mayne has designed the new building at Cooper Union (above) and submitted a proposal for an Olympic Village for NYC's 2012 Olympic bid (below. Here's the NY Times story about his win, the first by an American in 14 years (Robert Venturi in 1991).

This evening, architects Thom Mayne of Morphosis (pictured above, explaining his vision to Mayor Bloomberg) and George Hargreaves of Hargreaves Associates discuss their proposed design for New York's Olympic Village. The design is one of five finalists for the 52-acre site on the East River in Queens, which will include housing for 17,000 athletes, green space, athletic fields and training facilities.

The details of Monday's final submission by New York City to the International Olympic Committee were released yesterday with some interesting details. Deputy Mayor, and NYC2012 founder, Daniel Doctoroff said the Olympics will bring $7.6 billion in capital projects, cost $2.8 billion to run, but not cause any tax increases. Of course, the plan depends on a new West Side Stadium for the Jets that would set the city and state back a cool $600 million. 81% of tickets are projected to sell, generating $852 million, with most tickets under $50 but opening and closing ceremony tickets running $450 to $1500. 12,000, or about 1/3, of the NYPD would be devoted to Olympic security, but the cost would be covered by revenue from the games.

Who better to have an opinion on the Olympic proposal than someone that went through the Olympic process with another city and is a transportation and municipal consultant by day. Hatch feels that the proposed stadium for the Jets, which would also be Olympic Stadium is too far from the Olympic Village. Additionally, he feels that the plan for the Olympics could harm the recovery of lower Manhattan.

The International Olympic Comitee pared down the locations contending for the 2012 Olympic Games today, choosing five cities to remain in the competition. The cities chosen were New York City, Paris, London, Madrid, and Moscow. Istanbul, Leipzig, Rio de Janeiro and Havana did not make the list of finalists. This, of course, has Gothamist bummed because we were really hoping to travel to Cuba and smoke some fine cigars. There were reports that as many as six cities would make the list, but in the end only five were chosen.

See the proposed designs here, or go to Vanderbilt Hall at Grand Central, where you can view them over the next two weeks. Gothamist likes the twisted towers, pictured above, from (corrected) Henning Larsens Tegnestue. Dutch firm MRVDV also has a designed; we've loved their pig farm design. Other designers include Zaha Hadid, Thom Mayne (LA), and Smith-Miller & Hawkinson (NY).