Results tagged “urbanfuture”

- No financial services firms or other corporate office tenants are coming to Staten Island, despite large amounts of vacant space and inexpensive commercial real estate prices compared to Manhattan. (Most of the recent job growth on Staten Island has been in industries that pay low wages.)Yikes! The Center for an Urban Future suggests that reversing zoning laws to spur development, promoting cultural institution, developing a dynamic downtown to attract young residents, improving transportation options, and, most of all, having a plan to oversee population growth are key. With so much development, some people don't want any more, but former borough president hopeful John V. Luisi told the NY Times that more housing and stores should be built near the ferry terminal in St. George, not to mention a grocery store, a la the Red Hook Fairway, would help a lot.

No more Drown the Clown? No more zeppoles, chased down by some gelato? Or walks through Little Italy in a crushing sea of humanity? The Daily News reports that Community Board 2's street events committee is recommending that the board reject permits for San Gennaro.

Long Island City may be booming (or so the new developments seem to indicate), but one big company is moving out. MetLife is readying a move to Midtown. The NY Times's article outlines how MetLife went to Queens in the first place: $26.4 million in tax breaks from the Giuliani administration. However, MetLife claims it needs a "Manhattan presence" these days (oh, snap!). There's an interesting quote from the Center for an Urban Future's Jonathan Bowles:

“MetLife’s decision to move back to Manhattan highlights the ineffectiveness of giving away multimillions in tax incentives to individual firms. It seems like the city always gets burned in the end. MetLife is certainly entitled to move back to Manhattan if that will help them be more competitive in attracting and retaining employees, but the company shouldn’t be allowed to use city subsidies to do so.”

The NY Times reports that the city could demand MetLife "repay two times the roughly $12 million in incentives it has used up to now," but the city doesn't want to rock the boat too much, since MetLife is leaving some employees in LIC (the left behind?). Oh, and MetLife's move to much higher rents was probably spurred by senior executive complaints about the "lack of good restaurants," and being "too far from Midtown" (we bet the senior guys don't take the subway), not to mention prisoners from Rikers being released a few blocks away. Yeah, that could be a problem for other future tenants as well.

Mort & Ray Productions—organize more than 200 of the fairs. Vendors pay $100 to $400 to participate in each event, with profits split between the production company and the nonprofit sponsor. The city receives 20 percent of the total vendor fees, which is used for police overtime and other expenses.