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NYguy Feb 6, 2015 2:01 AM
NEW YORK | Sunnyside Yards
 
Creating this separate thread for a development that could overtake the Hudson Yards thread.

Sunnyside Yards in Queens has always been talked about as a potential site for everything from housing to stadiums, and convention centers.

But now with both the mayor of New York - Bill de Blasio, and the governor of New York - Andrew Cuomo, both homing in on Sunnyside Yards as the next mega-development in the city,
the discussion has begun. What should be built over the yards? One obvious answer would be housing, but the question is how should it be built, and what along with it?

As the mayor and governor play a little tug of war over the site, the formation of a plan begins.

But first, an overview of the site, courtesy of GoogleEarth...


Sunnyside Yards


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NYguy Feb 6, 2015 2:06 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by NYguy (Post 6781117)
Now, this is something that seems like it may have a chance...


http://www.capitalnewyork.com/articl...eens-rail-yard

Amtrak weighing development of massive Queens rail yard


http://www.capitalnewyork.com/sites/...0station_0.png



http://www.capitalnewyork.com/sites/...unnyside_1.png


By Ryan Hutchins
Oct. 23, 2014




http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/op...f=opinion&_r=1

New York’s Next Big Thing


http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/...-master675.jpg

Sunnyside Yards in Queens, which could hold the kind of convention center the city needs.


By DANIEL L. DOCTOROFF
NOV. 28, 2014


Quote:
NEW YORK is the most diverse, dynamic city on Earth.

More than 55 million people are projected to visit this year, bringing with them a total economic impact of more than $60 billion and supporting about 350,000 jobs.

We are an undisputed leader in tourism, yet we lag badly in one important aspect: the huge convention and conference business. Nationwide, conventions add nearly $400 billion to our gross domestic product, and employment in the industry is set to grow 33 percent through 2022. Sadly, New York ranks 64th globally in this business, leaving tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars on the table — resources that could fund better schools, parks and affordable housing.

New York struggles for two main reasons. First, of course, is price. With the average Manhattan hotel room costing nearly $300 per night, we are pricing ourselves out of the market for many major conventions. Then there is the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. Located on Manhattan’s Far West Side, Javits was unloved practically from the moment it opened. It’s too small for many events and can’t compete with facilities in other cities.

Fortunately, there’s a solution — one that would not only address our lack of competitiveness in the conventions and conferences business, but would also catalyze the transformation of two neighborhoods and make a meaningful dent in our affordable housing crisis. The best part is that we can do this all without costing taxpayers a dime.

The key is to replace the Javits Center. There’s been talk over the years of expanding it, but that won’t solve the affordability problem. Fortunately, the perfect undeveloped location for a new convention center exists at Sunnyside Yards, the more than 160-acre rail yard that carves a nasty scar through the heart of Queens.

Sunnyside Yards is adjacent to Long Island City, a neighborhood that has blossomed in recent years with new residents and businesses, including nearly 20 new hotels since 2007, with almost as many currently under construction or in the planning stages. The average hotel room rate in Queens is less than half that of Manhattan; a convention center on the border of Long Island City would go a long way toward solving the affordability problem that holds the Javits Center back.

Long Island City is also one of the most convenient, transit-friendly areas in the city, served by eight subway lines. The Long Island Rail Road and Amtrak pass through and park their trains there. Even New Jersey Transit stores its trains in Sunnyside. From my office one block south of Bloomingdale’s in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, I can get to Long Island City by subway in just one stop, and eight minutes flat.

Given the neighborhood’s many advantages, redeveloping Sunnyside Yards seems obvious — but the biggest barrier has always been the multibillion-dollar cost of building a platform over the train tracks that can allow the trains to run while accommodating large construction. The cost has always made the idea a nonstarter, but times — and real estate values — have changed. Stronger market conditions bring us closer to feasibility, but the numbers for building the platform still don’t add up unless we get creative.

That’s why we should relocate the Javits Center to Sunnyside, sell the extremely valuable property the Javits Center owns, and use the proceeds to pay for it.

In addition to a state-of-the-art convention center that would be 3.1 million square feet rather than the 1.8 million at Javits, the platform and adjacent rezoned areas would provide the foundation for a dynamic new neighborhood, accommodating nearly 14,000 new units of housing, of which about 50 percent would be affordable; more than two million square feet of office and retail space; several hotels to support convention visitors; vast expanses of public green space; a job-creating technology campus; and a new transit center. Convention visitors would have convenient places to stay at affordable rates.

One objection might be that a convention center must be in Manhattan to attract blockbuster conferences. Let’s put that old way of thinking aside. The ExCeL exhibition center in London, about five miles from the city’s core, has catalyzed nearly $5 billion in economic impact and supported 31,000 jobs. Sunnyside Yards is far closer to Midtown.

The land under the Javits Center would be rezoned for housing. More than 11,000 units could be developed there, of which 20 percent would be affordable. Between the redevelopments of the Sunnyside and Javits sites, more than 25,000 units of desperately needed housing could be created, of which more than 9,000 would be affordable. That could make a major contribution to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s admirable and ambitious housing plan.

Getting anything done in New York is hard. The bigger it is, the harder it gets. And the Javits to Sunnyside move is very big. Total estimated costs for the platform, the convention center and the related open space and infrastructure would be about $8 billion, according to an analysis done for me by SHoP Architects and HR&A Advisors. But the beauty of this plan is that it can all be financed at no new net cost to taxpayers. The Javits property could be sold for about $4 billion. The incremental real estate tax revenues from the new developments on both the Sunnyside and existing Javits sites would roughly pay for the difference.

Almost all of the land required to make this happen is owned by either the State of New York or by Amtrak. The Amtrak chairman, Anthony R. Coscia, indicated recently that Amtrak was considering the development potential of its holdings in the Sunnyside Yards. Still, it is Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo who controls all of the Javits site and much of the portion of Sunnyside Yards not owned by Amtrak.

Too often in New York, we get stuck in the tired paradigm of choosing between development and affordability. If we plan smartly, development can finance affordable housing, and affordability will attract greater diversity, which makes the city even more appealing to new residents and businesses.

Daniel L. Doctoroff is the chief executive officer of Bloomberg L.P. and chairman of Culture Shed, a cultural institution that will open in 2018. He was New York City’s deputy mayor for economic development.

NYguy Feb 6, 2015 2:07 AM
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...icle-1.2036405

New proposal suggests moving Javits Center to Queens in a bid to increase convention business, affordable housing


http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopo...k-aerials.jpg?

A new development proposal suggests relocating the Javits Center (pictured) from Manhattan to Queens.



http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopo...s.jpg?enlarged



BY LARRY MCSHANE
December 6, 2014


Quote:
Goodbye, West Side. Hello, Sunnyside.

A dramatic new development proposal suggests adding 1.3 million square feet to the Javits Center — right after relocating the whole place 21/2 miles east into Queens.

The plan would use state-owned land on Manhattan’s West Side and Sunnyside in Queens to create a new convention center in the outer borough while spawning new housing in both boroughs.

It would be, according to its proponents, the largest development project in city history: 31 million square of space on 192 acres, constructed across three decades.

.....With the Javits Center gone, seven blocks of state-owned property would open for construction of new housing. The money generated there would finance the Sunnyside platform and the $8 billion Exhibition and Convention Center.

The new center would provide an anchor for creating a Queens neighborhood above the rail yards — complete with new homes, office space, parks and up to 5,000 hotel rooms for convention guests.

.....The proposal would signal a sad farewell for the Javits, opened with much ballyhoo in 1986.

In its place would come a mixed-used neighborhood with commercial development along Eleventh Ave., complete with condominiums and residential rentals on an 18-acre parcel of land.

A design sketch shows a dozen or more tall buildings springing up on the West Side.

No one is suggesting the process will be simple. The Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn, launched in 2003, needed nearly a decade to open Barclays Center.



http://static2.nydailynews.com/polop...de7n-2-web.jpg



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Daily News editorial...



http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/e...icle-1.2035624

Think big, gentlemen
The Javits to Sunnyside plan makes sense


http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopo...b.jpg?enlarged


December 7, 2014


Quote:
Gov. Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio may very well have the opportunity to create a historically ambitious housing and commercial development for New York City — at an extraordinarily low cost to taxpayers.

Led by the governor, the two officials must assemble a working group to evaluate a newly formulated plan for producing more than 25,000 units of housing in Manhattan and Queens — with 10,000 of them pegged as affordable — along with a convention center designed to lure major events that now bypass the city.

The scheme is the brainchild of Dan Doctoroff, a deputy mayor in the Bloomberg administration, and former city planner Vishaan Chakrabarti of ShoP Architects, the firm that designed the Barclays Center.

On first review, their plan has more than enough credibility to demand intense consideration.

The heart of the proposal calls for unlocking the untapped, multi-billion-dollar value of the state-owned land beneath the Javits Convention Center on Manhattan’s West Side.

Outmoded and too small for the biggest shows, Javits would be torn down to make way for housing and commerce in the area between 11th and 12th Aves. from W. 33rd to W. 40th Sts.

Revenues generated by the development would finance construction of a replacement convention center and housing on a second tract of underutilized state-owned land: Sunnyside Yard in Queens.

At 192 acres , the rail yard is an immense dead zone in Long Island City. Without an enormous infusion of capital, it will remain a wasted asset.

The central premise of Doctoroff's plan is that the Manhattan side of the plan would throw off more than $8 billion, enabling construction of the new convention center and affordable housing on a platform over the rail tracks.

The scheme also reckons that Sunnyside Yard would be an ideal location for conventions, with seven subway lines and the Long Island Rail Road connecting there after brief rides from Manhattan, and Amtrak passing through.

By all rights, Cuomo and de Blasio should jump at studying the West Side-Sunnyside concept.

Cuomo recognized the need to replace Javits when he broached a plan early in his administration to build a convention center at Aqueduct Racetrack, far more distant and with only a fraction of the mass transit. He understands the need for major infrastructure projects — especially if they are self-financing.

De Blasio has focused on affordable housing. The units promised here would represent a major plus for working- and middle-class New Yorkers. Again, with limited drain on the public treasury.

Cuomo, as owner of the properties at play, and de Blasio, as the mayor who would guide zoning and planning, must jointly test the economic fundamentals of creating two boomtowns that would stand as proud monuments in their legacies.

NYguy Feb 6, 2015 2:12 AM
http://observer.com/2015/02/de-blasi...-plan-details/

De Blasio Heralds Sunnyside Yards as Next Stuy-Town, Unveils Other Housing Details


https://nyoobserver.files.wordpress....eg?w=635&h=422


By Kim Velsey
02/03/15


Quote:
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced at the State of the City address this morning that he intends to build 11,250 affordable housing units at Sunnyside Yards—the same as the number as at Stuy-Town and Peter Cooper Village. At 200 acres, Sunnyside Yards is one of the largest undeveloped parcels in New York City, but one that presents myriad difficulties to developers as it remains an active rail yard in use by several train companies.

Mr. de Blasio compared the Sunnyside Yards plan to post-war affordable housing projects like Starrett City and Co-op City and said that it would be a “a game-changer” with enough affordable housing for “over 30,000 New Yorkers.” And unlike Stuy-Town, he said, “we’re going to make sure that affordable housing at Sunnyside Yards stays affordable.”

Mr. de Blasio said that rail tracks could be placed underground such that housing could be built on top—a process which is being undertaken at Hudson Yards, but in that case with the financial backing of developers eager to cash in on commercial rents—though he admitted that “some parts could more easily handle larger buildings being built there and some could not.”

It was yet another ambitious facet in Mr. de Blasio’s very ambitious affordable housing plan to build or preserve 200,000 units within the next decade and comes with surprisingly precise details given the nascent stage of the process.

The city is partnering with Amtrak, which owns the yards, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, to conduct a feasibility study, Alicia Glen, deputy mayor for housing and economic development, told reporters after the mayor’s speech, which she called the first step in seeing if such a project could be completed.

The governor’s office, meanwhile, was critical of the announcement, writing in a statement that “the MTA uses Sunnyside Yards as an important facility for our transportation system, and it is not available for any other use in the near term. The State and the MTA are studying several potential future uses of the site from a long term planning prospective.”



e Real Estate Board (the powerful developers) are ready to build, and will push to get this done on both fronts.



http://www.rew-online.com/2015/02/03...ng-to-do-list/

Bold de Blasio adds 160,000 units to housing ‘to do’ list


By Dan Orlando
February 3, 2014


Quote:
The Real Estate Board of New York yesterday (Tuesday) applauded Mayor de Blasio’s call to strengthen his affordable housing plan by a further 160,000 units.

Calling the decision “bold,ˮ REBNY president Steve Spinola said the mayor’s call for an additional 160,000 market-rate units, above and beyond the 200,000 affordable units the administration plans to build or preserve over the next decade, “will go a long way to keeping New York the greatest city in the world in which to live, work, and raise a family.”

De Blasio began his campaign by promising the original 200,000 units of affordable living space, but Tuesday’s demand for a new wave of market rate properties is an answer to the dwindling supply and surging prices that face the city’s residential marketplace.

“Building more new market rate and affordable housing, and preserving and enhancing our current inventory of affordable housing is the only way to address our decades-long housing shortage,” said Spinola.

During his address, de Blasio warned, “If we fail to be a city for everyone, we risk losing what makes New York, New York. And nothing more clearly expresses the inequality gap — the opportunity gap — than the soaring cost of housing.ˮ

Kathryn Wylde, president & CEO of the Partnership for New York City, commented, “The high volume of affordable housing production achieved during the Koch era was the result of robust public-private partnerships.

“A collaborative approach is even more important today since city government has little inventory of cheap land and construction costs have skyrocketed. While it was not explicit in the Mayor’s speech, I trust his administration understands that forging partnerships with the development and financial industries is the only way to accomplish his housing goals.”

At the time of the most recent census (2012), the median household income amongst Manhattan residence stood at just under $67,000 per year. The average rents for the borough eclipsed $3,000 per month.

Up against slightly more modest rents, Brooklyn and Queens saw median household incomes of $44,850 and $54,373 respectively.

The highest household income belonged to the suburban Staten Island, which barely eclipsed $70,000 per year.

“Without such bold initiatives, the City’s housing market will tighten further and become even more expensive,” said Spinola. “Our industry stands ready to work with the mayor and other stakeholders to put shovels in the ground and cranes in the sky to tackle this important goal.”

NYguy Feb 6, 2015 2:13 AM
Cuomo returns to Sunnyside Yards convention center idea

Tess Hofmann
February 5/2015
Quote:
The idea of a massive Queens convention center that would replace the West Side’s Jacob Javits Center has foundered before, but now Governor Andrew Cuomo appears to be returning to the concept in the face of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s designs to build affordable housing in the Sunnyside neighborhood.

Wednesday morning, the day after de Blasio proposed building a Stuyvesant Town-sized affordable housing development on a platform above Sunnyside Yards in Queens, Cuomo said that the plan is complicated and expensive and that he is considering alternatives, according to Capital New York.

“There have been a number of uses proposed,” the governor said. “One of them is to make that a convention center site to supplement the Javits convention center, which is on the west side of Manhattan, or replace the Javits Center on the West Side of Manhattan. And that’s one of the possibilities that is being studied, along with several other possible scenarios.”

Cuomo appears to be referencing former Bloomberg CEO Dan Doctoroff’s proposal to replace the 1.8 million-square-foot Javits Center with a 3.1 million-square-foot convention center in Sunnyside Yards, and partially fund the project with 25,000 housing units, 9,000 of which would be affordable, that would be built on both the old and new convention center sites.

While Doctoroff has put a $5.6 billion price tag on his proposal, De Blasio has not yet delved into specifics for his plan. - See more at: http://therealdeal.com/blog/2015/02/....KNAWBHMJ.dpuf



http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...unnyside-yards

Mayor to guv: 'Plenty of room' at Sunnyside Yards


http://www.crainsnewyork.com/apps/pb...20150204134935


ANDREW J. HAWKINS
FEBRUARY 4, 2015


Quote:
After Gov. Andrew Cuomo quickly dismissed the idea of building 11,250 units of affordable housing on top of Sunnyside Yards, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday he is confident the project will get done.

"I think we're going to find a way forward here," Mr. de Blasio said in a radio interview with WNYC's Brian Lehrer.

He noted that Amtrak, the largest landowner at the 200-acre site in western Queens, is supportive of his idea of decking over the rail yards and building affordable housing on top, and that the city owns air rights on 44 of the acres owned by the state-controlled Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

"Look, I think as we talk to the governor's folks, as we talk to the MTA, we'll find our way toward the kind of vision that works for everyone," he added. "They have other things they think are a priority for that site. There's plenty of room on that site."

Less than an hour after Mr. de Blasio proposed a massive residential development at Sunnyside Yards, a spokeswoman for Mr. Cuomo released a statement calling the site "an important facility for our transportation system" that is "not available for any other use in the near term."

Mr. Cuomo reiterated his concerns in a Wednesday interview with NY1. "Sunnyside Yards is problematic," he said. "But I agree with the mayor's overall thrust [on housing] and I applaud him for it."

The governor isn't the only one expressing doubt about the project. Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, who represents the site, told The Wall Street Journal Tuesday that he would "never" support the construction of high-density housing in the portion of the rail yards buttressing the Sunnyside neighborhood.

Late Tuesday, Amtrak released a statement saying, "We are working with the city and others to understand what potential exists for this incredibly unique site and recognize and support the mayor's strong interest in advancing affordable housing as part of any major new development."

Nothing will happen soon. Amtrak has said it doesn't expect to conduct a feasibility study until 2016. And the cost of decking over the site could be enormous. Constructing a platform over a portion of the much smaller 26-acre Hudson Yards in western Manhattan is expected to cost upward of $700 million.

After the State of the City speech Tuesday, the mayor's aides acknowledged the long road ahead for the project.

"Sunnyside Yards is a very complicated site," said Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen. "The first thing the city will be doing is using our own resources to go out and solicit that first step in the feasibility study, which will allow us to all have a common framework around which we can plan this amazing opportunity."

Community opposition, much like that which stalled the Atlantic Yards project for years, is anticipated, she said.

"I don't know if we can ever avoid all the lawsuits," said Ms. Glen. "But I do think our approach is fundamentally very different. Simultaneously while we're doing the engineering and feasibility work, we're already convening local elected officials and a wide array of stakeholders."

The project could avoid one of the major criticisms about Atlantic Yards: the use of eminent domain. Ms. Glen said the controversial practice of taking private property is "currently not contemplated" for the project because only 23 acres of the site are privately held.

On WNYC, as he did in his speech Tuesday, the mayor likened the project to the construction of Stuyvesant Town, which opened in 1947, calling the East Side project "the kind of housing that working-class and middle-class people were able to depend on for a generation in New York City."

"There's greenery, the buildings aren't too high, it's the right balance," he said. "We can do that on a plot of land, 200 acres. You can do that and do a lot of other good things, too."

BrownTown Feb 6, 2015 2:24 AM
The number of bridges and rail flyovers in the area would make this site very complex to develop. It would probably take at least a billion just to get the infrastructure to a point where you could even START construction on the actual platform and buildings. I'm not sure how that level of expense could ever be paid off with affordable housing and a convention center. The Eastern half of the yards might be possible, but the West half looks too complex and small to justify the expense.

chris08876 Feb 6, 2015 3:17 AM
Lots of potential. This is the scarce land that developers like to develop a mini city. I can see this complementing the future DoBro like skyline of LIC. Something like this could have 40,000 units of housing if not more depending on how dense it is. Well, thats it they built Shenzhen style which has many developments on sites like this or larger. Hopefully the city thinks big, this is a rare opportunity like the HY.

This is probably 6 years if not more from a platform even starting, if it does.

NYguy Feb 6, 2015 3:56 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by BrownTown (Post 6903611)
The number of bridges and rail flyovers in the area would make this site very complex to develop. It would probably take at least a billion just to get the infrastructure to a point where you could even START construction on the actual platform and buildings. I'm not sure how that level of expense could ever be paid off with affordable housing and a convention center. The Eastern half of the yards might be possible, but the West half looks too complex and small to justify the expense.

That's becuase you're only focusing on 2 potential components of the development. Trust that there are many minds involved here, if the numbers don't work, it won't get done.



Quote:
Originally Posted by chris08876 (Post 6903661)
Lots of potential. This is the scarce land that developers like to develop a mini city. I can see this complementing the future DoBro like skyline of LIC. Something like this could have 40,000 units of housing if not more depending on how dense it is. Well, thats it they built Shenzhen style which has many developments on sites like this or larger. Hopefully the city thinks big, this is a rare opportunity like the HY.

This is probably 6 years if not more from a platform even starting, if it does.
Even that may be a ltitle optimistic, but it depends on what is getting built, and who is doing the building. Obviously this won't be a job for one developer, and would be built in phases. It's a development large enough to swallow both Hudson and Atlantic Yards.

It took years before Hudson Yards could begin, and that was after a plan was in place, for which the city will embark on a study before anything is formulated with any certainty. But this is how things get done. You can just pull an idea out of your head on a development this complex and say "this is exactly what and how it's going to be". That's why de Blasio had no concrete details.

But the talk of building housing had me thinking of some other developments in the city that happened over railyards, and I remember Concourse Village in the Bronx. This is a good read that gives an idea of the effort for such an undertaking...



http://www.startsandfits.com/?p=255

A South Bronx Rail Yard Is Reborn


http://www.startsandfits.com/wp-cont...view_Large.jpg


February 6, 2011 by AD


Quote:

Much attention over the past decade has been given to two huge development projects that are underway to build above rail yards in the far west side of Manhattan and at Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn.

In the midst of all of the excitement and controversy that these projects have generated, it is easy to overlook the fact that building on top of New York City rail yards has happened before. The construction of many skyscrapers in the east 40s above the rail yards leading to Grand Central Terminal is fairly well known. Much less known is a similar effort in the South Bronx’s civic district that has resulted in homes for 4,000 people, six public school buildings serving nearly 4,000 children, about 235,000 square feet of office space and 77,700 more coming soon, a supermarket, neighborhood stores, a food court, and at least 1,806 parking spaces. Let’s have a look at how this has come together.

The land in question was previously the site of the Mott Haven Rail Yard a/k/a the Melrose Yard, built by the New York Central Railroad c. 1873 and used to store and maintain freight cars, passenger coaches and locomotives. It is located south of East 161st Street between Morris Avenue to the east and Sheridan Avenue to the west, and as far south as the wye where Metro-North’s Harlem Line and the Hudson Line converge. The railroad graded the land to fit the nearby rail lines, making it 15 to 40 feet below the adjacent streets, a fact that greatly influenced the future development.

The yard helped support the New York Central’s mighty regional transportation network, with rail lines throughout the Northeast and deep into the Midwest. However, the yard was effectively a barrier between the Melrose neighborhood to the east and what today is the Grand Concourse area to the west, save for one bridge spanning the yard at 153rd Street. Starting in 1961 and continuing to today, five waves of development have thoroughly transformed this site, helping to weave together the previously sundered urban fabric. Today no trace of the rail yard remains, except for the outline it left behind in the form of the buildings that have replaced it, and the railroad’s Melrose Central Building at the southwest corner of Morris Avenue and East 161st Street, now occupied by city-run social service offices.

Wave 1: Concourse Village (1965)

http://www.startsandfits.com/wp-cont...e_Village1.jpg


The first development to take place above the rail yard was a middle-income housing development known as Concourse Village. It was originally intended to be an enormous housing development that would have blanketed the entire yards, all the way south to 150th Street, with 20 towers of each 25 stories tall. Ultimately, however, only about a quarter of that was built. An early report indicated that the railroad leased its air rights for $750,000 per year for 60 years, although later reports indicated that it was paid $7 million, presumably up front, by the project’s sponsor, the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America.

Either way, most of the construction financing came from the New York State Housing Finance Agency, which issued a $30 million loan (later rising to $36.2 million), at that time the state’s largest loan ever for housing restricted to middle-income households. The brick-and-mortar results of the ambitious transaction outlived either the railroad underneath, which merged out of existence a few years after the towers were complete, or the union, which merged in 1979 with another union to form the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, and has long since gotten out of the housing business.

The first phase of the housing, the only one to be built, was approved by the City Planning Commission in October 1960 and was projected to cost $31 million. The four phases were to begin construction every six months in 1961 and 1962. The fourth phase, to be underway as of the second half of 1962, was to be a shopping center. (As it happened, that section did get built, but decades later than originally conceived. More on that below.)

The part of Concourse Village that was built and survives to this day consists of six leviathan 25-story slab towers with 1,875 apartments, all clad in 1960s white brick and organized around a 470-space surface parking lot. This is the quintessential tower-in-the-parking-lot, cataclysmic-style development that fell way, way out of fashion after Jane Jacobs’ Death and Life of Great American Cities, which came out the same year that the concrete and iron stilts were hammered in between the still active rails for this development. It is built on a platform over what at that time was still an active rail yard. The platform was built by the Cauldwell-Wingate Company, which was simultaneously using similar techniques to build the 50-story tower, now occupied by JPMorganChase, at 277 Park Avenue, over the tracks leading to Grand Central.

The buildings started out as “integrated” housing – mixing white, black and Hispanic families. When it was first built, the Grand Concourse to the west was largely a white neighborhood, while Melrose to the east was African-American and Puerto Rican. As of 1967, the buildings were 68 percent white. But the buildings were built just at the moment that large scale white flight from the Bronx was beginning, including along the nearby Grand Concourse. By 2000, the buildings were 82% black, according to census data. Even from the beginning, whites’ allegiance to the buildings was tenuous, with some early depositors backing out when learning they’d be living in “integrated housing.”

After the initial nervousness and slow co-op sales, the State declined to finance the second residential phase of the project.

There was also some early grumbling about lack of schools, which was soon to be remedied. One factor that helped fill out the buildings was the promise of new adjacent schools, completed in 1972.

Wave 2: Two Schools (1972)


http://www.startsandfits.com/wp-cont...4_Schools1.jpg


There is less information available about the second wave of development, two school buildings on the south side of 156th Street. The two buildings have different shapes, but identical architecture, so I am assuming they were built at basically the same time. There is no certificate of occupancy on the Buildings Department website for the school on the east, but the school on the west, at 750 Concourse Village West (Sheridan Avenue) was completed in November 1972 according to its final certificate of occupancy, which is dated January 1978. The building on the west housed P.S. 156 (the Benjamin Banneker School) until the school closed in 2008. Today the building houses two elementary schools, the Performance School (605 students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade) and the Global Learning Institute for Girls (154 students in kindergarten through fifth grade). The building on the east, at 250 East 156th Street, houses P.S. 31, the William Lloyd Garrison School (667 students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade), and I.S. 151, the Henry Lou Gehrig School, (282 students in sixth grade through eighth). Together, these two buildings house four schools that enroll 1,708 students.

Many years went by before the next wave of development took place. In fact, it was 10 years after the ink dried on the certificate of occupancy for P.S. 156 that the new building permit for the next wave was filed. This wouldn’t surprise anyone even casually familiar with the history of the Bronx. This period involved the previously mentioned white flight. Notions of planned shrinkage. Redlining. Benign neglect. Every catch phrase for public-sector and private-sector policies that encouraged people to leave the Bronx for the suburbs. As a result, it was the decade the Fire Department knew as the War Years: abandonment, decay, and fires.

During these years, the area at the north end of the former rail yard was used as an 800-space parking lot for baseball fans attending games at Yankee Stadium, five blocks to the west – a hopelessly marginal use for such central land.

Wave 3: Concourse Plaza Shopping Center and Office Tower (1998)


http://www.startsandfits.com/wp-cont...rse_Plaza1.jpg


Enter Bernard J. Rosenshein, a developer who had grown up on Gerard Avenue between 164th and 165th Streets, a short walk from the site, who understood the retail potential in what was by now a woefully underserved neighborhood. In 1988, he began building the Concourse Plaza Shopping Center and a 10-story, 200,000-square-foot office tower at 198 East 161st Street that houses the Bronx District Attorney’s offices, offices for the Bronx Borough President, and others.

The shopping center is anchored to the east by a large supermarket, originally Waldbaums and now Bogopa/Food Bazaar, that is tucked in behind the Melrose Central Building. The western anchor is a food court and 3,300-seat multiplex movie theater. All told, there are 32 businesses arrayed suburban-style around a surface parking lot for 251 cars (though most of the spaces are empty most of the time), and sitting atop two levels of parking below street level for another 957 cars. Up above the first floor of stores, there’s a second floor housing social security offices.

Building all of this was a massive 10-year undertaking, requiring at least two levels of concrete and steel just to bring the “ground floor” up to the level of the adjacent ground. At least part of the shopping plaza opened for business in 1991 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony featuring the Borough President. But the plaza was not completed, in the eyes of the Buildings Department, until February 1998. The tower serves as a nice counterpoint to the Melrose Central Building, with the each building anchoring one end of the plaza.

This shopping center represents a revival of plans initially laid out more than two decades earlier with the development of Concourse Village. It is now owned by the Feil Organization, New York City-based owner of suburban strip malls across the country and New York City apartment buildings.

So by the completion of Concourse Plaza, the former rail yards site now supports apartments, retail, offices, and schools. And in the next wave of development, it came to support even more schools. A lot more.

http://www.startsandfits.com/wp-cont...e_Tower_I1.jpg


Wave 4: Mott Haven Campus (2010)


In December 2004, Mayor Bloomberg announced a plan to build the four new schools to serving 2,000 students at the southern end of the former rail yard. The goal was to reduce overcrowding in Bronx schools. Whereas the first three waves of development were elevated above the former rail yards through steel and concrete stilts, this is the first wave of development to be built directly on the former rail yards.

The city pledged $30 million to remediate the soil to eliminate toxins left by the former use as a rail yard, including: mercury, lead, benzene, and tetrachloroethylene. Two years later, the City Council stalled the plan over concerns about local autonomy in admissions and independent testing over the levels of toxins on site. In January 2007 the City Council allowed construction to proceed after the City agreed to the independent testing. But then in April 2007 a coalition sued the City, saying it wasn’t doing enough. The lawsuit, decided in October 2008, required the School Construction Authority to create a long-term environmental monitoring plan.

Ultimately that plan was created and the schools were built. Mayor Bloomberg and other elected officials visited the site on September 1, 2010, to cut the ribbon on the complex. Together, these schools are providing space for 1,938 students. They are the largest project ever undertaken by the New York City School Construction Authority. Just as the site’s second wave of schools expansion was wrapping up, its second wave of office expansion was beginning.

Wave 5: Concourse Plaza Office Tower II (Construction Underway)


http://www.startsandfits.com/wp-cont..._Tower_II1.jpg

The office tower built in the 1990s at Concourse Plaza Shopping Center is reportedly completely filled to capacity, indicating unfilled demand for office space in this part of the Bronx. Reinforcing that reality is nearby Victorian style houses that have been converted into offices. In order to meet the demand for office space, Concourse Plaza’s new owners, Feil, are building a glassy second office tower with about 69,000 square feet of space at the site’s southwest corner. A construction consultant notes that the project has its own extra challenges because it is being built above utility lines that service the existing shopping center, of which it will soon be a part. At this writing, that construction is proceeding with an estimated completion date that is months away.

One of the things that has always bothered me about most tower-in-the-park(ing lot) style developments is that they replaced perfectly good urban fabric that in many ways was superior to the towers. That’s not the case here. Nothing was demolished to make way for Concourse Village, since it was built in the air.

So without the nagging desire to mourn what was demolished, does this instance of towers-in-the-park stand on its own as an improvement to what had come before it? Could it have been better? Answers to those subjective questions can only come from the beholder. In my opinion, the surface parking fronting 161st Street gets relatively little use. Had it been hidden behind the buildings, the retail would have been more attractive to the many pedestrians using 161st Street. I am glad to see that the Mott Haven Campus does not waste any space on parking, when there are ample subway and bus lines nearby, along with copious private parking lots and garages.

In some ways, it is sad that there is no longer the demand for rail yard space at this location, but that is one small result of changes taking place at a much broader level. All in all, at the neighborhood scale, this has been a worthwhile multi-decade effort.

One wonders what the next wave of development for this site will be. With the recent up-zoning of 161st Street, one of the most attractive building parcels is the Concourse Plaza parking lot. I’d say that will be the first piece to be built upon in the next building boom.


http://www.startsandfits.com/wp-cont..._09_future.jpg

Rail>Auto Feb 6, 2015 5:41 AM
Several random and outside the box thoughts I have on this...

- I'd hate to move a convention center out of Manhattan since that is the center of the business community but if they can really get 4 of 8 billion needed from selling the property, it'd be hard not to give strong consideration to the idea.

- I'm not too sold on housing on the Javits lot. It seems to me like an old World Trade Center complex would be better. No, it would not have the nostalgia of downtown, but it could rejuvenate city moral, could be blocked off from the grid, and would fit in perfectly with Hudson Yards. Although, I haven't looked at what the current demand is for office space.

- The housing component of the Sunnyside plan should be something in the form of the old Lighthouse project. It did a great job putting all the pieces together.

- I'm not a fan of the NFL being in Jersey with two teams and none in NYC. I think we're getting close to the time when one of those teams can opt out (the Jets I would imagine). This would be the perfect opportunity to build a stadium in either Queens or Manhattan, esp Queens since it would have room to grow.

- I am 110% opposed to demolition of MSG so I hope whatever happens with the Javits lot should this decision be made happens quickly before anyone gets any wild ideas of moving MSG there.

k1052 Feb 6, 2015 3:54 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rail>Auto (Post 6903799)

- I am 110% opposed to demolition of MSG so I hope whatever happens with the Javits lot should this decision be made happens quickly before anyone gets any wild ideas of moving MSG there.
MSG can move to the Farley Annex as previously envisioned. The existing arena simply has to go for any meaningful changes to be done to Penn Station at the track/platform level. Trains can't load/unload quickly because of narrow platforms, limited vertical circulation, and constricted concourses. I'm not even necessarily of the opinion that Penn needs a dramatic (and inevitably insanely expensive) new head house (new overbuild may be preferable financially also) but it is not even a question that MSG has to go.

As to the proposal for moving the convention center...it's possible but going to cost. Sale/lease of Javits would only cover a small portion of the cost to rebuild a larger one over the rail yard and may not be financially responsible. The day may come where office and residential construction is justified due to lack of available land. Willets Point may be a better choice.

hammersklavier Feb 6, 2015 10:17 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by BrownTown (Post 6903611)
The number of bridges and rail flyovers in the area would make this site very complex to develop. It would probably take at least a billion just to get the infrastructure to a point where you could even START construction on the actual platform and buildings. I'm not sure how that level of expense could ever be paid off with affordable housing and a convention center. The Eastern half of the yards might be possible, but the West half looks too complex and small to justify the expense.
I think the idea is that intensive development of the current Javits Center site would cross-subsidize the expense needed create the infrastructure needed to handle development in Sunnyside Yards.

But that would probably be contingent on parcel sales...which would need to happen after the new Sunnyside Yards Javits Center was built.

chris08876 Feb 9, 2015 12:55 PM
Some extra info/reading:
= = = = = = = = = = = =

Sunnyside on track for major land grab
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/apps/pb...20150206185737

Quote:
Sunnyside on track for major land grab

Seems like everybody with big ideas for the future has their eyes on the same prize: an obscure plot in Queens.
For Mayor Bill de Blasio last week, it became ground zero for his self-described "game changer" proposal to build 11,250 affordable apartments. Hold on, said Gov. Andrew Cuomo. He called the property the staging area for another kind of game changer: the tunnels that will bring the Long Island Rail Road into the heart of midtown. Meanwhile, former Bloomberg administration Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff sees it as the perfect spot for a huge new money-spinning convention center, among other things.
All those dreams now hang like a gilded cloud over a roughly 200-acre property that one real estate insider likens to "a giant bowl of spaghetti that will never be untangled," and others have decried for years as a massive scar on the western flank of the city's second-most-populous borough.
Welcome to Sunnyside Yards, where only one thing about what happens next on the city's largest, best-situated vacant lot is clear: It's gonna take a lot of time and money.

"I think it's very important for politicians to have visions," said Mitchell Moss, director of the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at New York University. "But a lot of visions are nightmares."
For openers, whatever ultimately rises at Sunnyside Yards will stand on a platform that must be built over a labyrinth of active train tracks used by Amtrak, the LIRR and New Jersey Transit. Ownership of the site is nothing if not messy. The puzzle-piece layout of property lines within the yard could make it difficult to deck over the tracks without consensus between the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Amtrak, the owners of the choicest pieces of land, according to city records. Meanwhile, the city owns the air rights over two-thirds of the MTA's 66 acres, but it's unclear exactly where.

[...]

Frightening prospect

Quote:
That's nice, but area residents disagree. Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, whose district encompasses the entirety of the rail yard, has vowed to block any proposal for a convention center or high-rise housing in the portion of the yard adjacent to landmarked neighborhood Sunnyside Gardens.
"There have been lots of proposals on developing the yard over the years," he said. "And every time it comes up, folks in the neighborhood get frightened about the prospect of massive development."

And then there's the small matter of timing. In his State of the City speech last week, the mayor talked of putting 11,250 below-market apartments at Sunnyside Yards, the same number built in 1947 at Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village in Manhattan. But experts doubt that Mr. de Blasio will even be around to count those units toward his ultimate goal of building or preserving 200,000 affordable apartments during the next decade. Decking over the rail yard, even a small portion of it, is expected to be a multidecade project—one with financially unfortunate timing.

"It's a 30-year project where probably 50% of the costs will be incurred in the first five years," said Seth Pinsky, a former CEO of the city's Economic Development Corp., now an executive vice president at developer RXR Realty. "It's decking, it's sewers, it's electricity. There's nothing there. You're building from scratch."

No wonder the mayor's office acknowledges that any housing built at Sunnyside Yards will likely become available after the conclusion of Mr. de Blasio's affordable-housing plan. Nonetheless, it now looks likely that at some point, with the city's blessing—if not cash—housing will blossom on the site. It's a possibility rich in irony.

Prior to the yard's construction 105 years ago, the site was marshland, crisscrossed by streams feeding into Newtown Creek . But the LIRR saw potential and bought up much of the property. Back then, according to 1975's The Long Island Rail Road: A Comprehensive History by Vincent Seyfried, hundreds of homeowners received eviction notices. They barely had time to move out before "scavengers under the cover of darkness" demolished whole houses for their wood and plumbing.
=======================================
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...ajor-land-grab

NYguy Feb 10, 2015 12:52 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rail>Auto (Post 6903799)
- I'd hate to move a convention center out of Manhattan since that is the center of the business community but if they can really get 4 of 8 billion needed from selling the property, it'd be hard not to give strong consideration to the idea.

This would be the perfect opportunity to build a stadium in either Queens or Manhattan, esp Queens since it would have room to grow.
The Giants and Jets will be in Jersey for another 90 years or so, so forget about that idea.



Quote:
Originally Posted by hammersklavier (Post 6904803)
I think the idea is that intensive development of the current Javits Center site would cross-subsidize the expense needed create the infrastructure needed to handle development in Sunnyside Yards.

But that would probably be contingent on parcel sales...which would need to happen after the new Sunnyside Yards Javits Center was built.
That's exactly right, and what one of the plans is calling for.

Also about the convention center, keep in mind that the governor was calling for the new convention center to be further east, at Aqueduct racetrack where the casino is. But the cost was being paid for privately by the same company that wanted expanded gambling at the site. Cuomo put off legalized gambling in the city for a few years, so that plan was dead.

But the need for a new convention center comes from the fact that Javits is basically 3 to 4 times too small to bring the type of business the city wants. Building something that large in Manhattan is out of the question, and a convention center in Queens would be in proximity to the city's airports.



Quote:
That's nice, but area residents disagree. Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, whose district encompasses the entirety of the rail yard, has vowed to block any proposal for a convention center or high-rise housing in the portion of the yard adjacent to landmarked neighborhood Sunnyside Gardens.
More of the typical, nutty nonsense you would expect from these types. The mayor could have came out and said they were going to build the most beautiful park in the country over the railyards, and someone would be outraged by the prospect.

No, it won't be an easy process (why would anyone think otherwise???) to build over the railyards. New York is hardly an easy place to build in to begin with, but that doesn't mean things don't get done. My eyes roll over 3 times whenever I see whining about something being "difficult".

NYguy Feb 19, 2015 8:31 PM
http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2015/0...egaproject.php

Inside Sunnyside Yards, New York City's Next Megaproject


http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/01_kens...s_DSC_3583.jpg
[The Sunnyside Yards in Queens, the site of two new development proposals, is home to a complicated overlap of trains and neighborhoods. All photos by Nathan Kensinger.]
http://kensinger.blogspot.com/


February 19, 2015
by Nathan Kensinger


Quote:
In the past few weeks, the Sunnyside Yards has received an inordinate amount of attention from politicians and press, after being referenced as a possible development site for future megaprojects. Described as "a giant bowl of spaghetti," this vast Queens train yard was included as one of the central proposals in Mayor Bill de Blasio's State of the City address, where he called for a platform to be built over the yards holding 11,250 new affordable apartments. Not to be outdone, Governor Cuomo soon responded by giving support to a different proposal for a new convention center above the tracks. Based on their enthusiasm for these projects, it remains doubtful that either politician has personally explored the entire complicated reality of this 180-acre rail yard.

A circumnavigation of the Sunnyside Yards on foot reveals how huge and complex any plan to build above it would be. Almost two miles long, the perimeter of the yard is surrounded by elaborate fences and intersected by numerous bridges, but its day-to-day operations are largely hidden from public view. What few vantage points there are show a multi-layered system where LIRR, NJ Transit, Amtrak and MTA trains wind and weave above and below ground, enmeshed in a web of power lines and ancillary tracks. Meanwhile, an equally diverse array of neighborhoods borders the edges of the yard, ranging from the post-industrial side streets of Long Island City to the still-industrial warehouses of Sunnyside and the charming residences of the Sunnyside Gardens Historic District.

Walking through this convoluted landscape, it becomes clear that any local pressure to develop on top of the Sunnyside Yards is largely coming from its northwest boundary, where the creeping tide of luxury towers has swept aside industry in Long Island City and reached the very edges of the tracks. In the narrow strip of land between Jackson Avenue and the yards, cranes and construction dominate the skyline, as century-old warehouses are demolished to make way for new residential behemoths. West Chemical and 5 Pointz have now been completely destroyed, Eagle Electric is being gutted and renovated, and several new glass boxes now loom over the yards. The potential creation of up to 28 million square feet of "new" land in the backyard of these projects would doubtlessly benefit some developers enormously....


http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/02_kens...s_DSC_3570.jpg



http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/03_kens...s_DSC_2724.jpg



http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/04_kens...s_DSC_3468.jpg



http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/05_kens...s_DSC_3170.jpg



http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/06_kens...s_DSC_3213.jpg



http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/07_kens...s_DSC_3366.jpg



http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/16_kens...s_DSC_3049.jpg



Development bearing down...


http://ny.curbed.com/uploads/11_kens...s_DSC_3268.jpg

NYguy Feb 20, 2015 3:57 PM
Looking to get back on the railyard bandwagon, the Bronx wants to build...


http://www.welcome2thebronx.com/word...al-rail-yards/

Bronx BP Proposes Development Over Several Rail Yards

By Ed García Conde
February 19, 2015


Quote:
149th Street Metro North rail yards outlined in red.

http://www.welcome2thebronx.com/word...02/149thst.jpg



Quote:
Bedford park rail yards outlined in red.

http://www.welcome2thebronx.com/word...ingsbridge.jpg



Quote:
1 train rail yards west of Broadway in Riverdale/Kingsbridge. (outlined in red)

http://www.welcome2thebronx.com/word.../riverdale.jpg

sparkling Feb 21, 2015 5:11 PM
City to Study Feasibility of Sunnyside Yards, Amid Concerns

Saturday, February 21, 2015
Rowley Amato
Quote:
Despite the endless complications of building over Sunnyside Yards, the New York City Economic Development Corporation will soon embark on a formal feasibility study of Mayor De Blasio's proposed affordable housing megaproject.

According to the EDC—which issued an RFP on Friday—the study will assess the practicalities of building a massive rail platform over the train tracks and developing 11,250 affordable units. The study will encompass a large variety of specific factors, including possible changes in the configuration of the rail yards, requirements to maintain rail operations, geotechnical conditions of the site, the infrastructural requirements of the proposed platforms, and the financial costs of the project.

However, local opposition to the project is already mounting. State Senator Michael Gianaris, whose district includes Sunnyside, recently expressed concerns and vowed to fight against the project if it is not supported by the community-at-large.

"As any possible discussion surrounding Sunnyside Yards continues, I will intensify my efforts to see these needs addressed before anyone proposes adding thousands of new residents to our area," he wrote in a letter to constituents. "I will stand with you every step of the way as we work to ensure that our infrastructure keeps pace with continued growth and residents like you have the say you deserve in determining the future of our neighborhood."

Beyond the political ramifications of the project, the logistical problems are myriad. There are the aforementioned issues of ownership, given that the MTA, Amtrak, and various other entities all control portions of the rail yard; the price will be exorbitant (as a comparison, the platform over the Hudson Yards megaproject will cost around $750 million); and it will likely take over a decade for the project to even get past the planning stages.

Nevertheless, responses to the city's RFP are due by March 20.

Sunnyside Yards Development Will Be Costly and Time-Consuming, Experts Say

Damn, I thought it would be done in six days and all we need is 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish to feed the workers. Silly me!

Jeanmarie Evelly
February 19, 2015
Quote:
Mayor Bill de Blasio's plan to build thousands of affordable apartments over the railroad tracks at Sunnyside Yards might not make it out of the station because of a hefty expected price tag, experts say.

The mayor proposed building some 11,250 affordable units at the rail yards during his State of the City speech earlier this month. And while experts say it can be done — pointing to projects like Atlantic Yards and Hudson Yards — they predict it will be costly and time-consuming.

"We sort of learned how to do them in the modern era, but they're expensive," said Barry Hersh, a clinical associate professor at New York University's Schack Institute of Real Estate.

He compared the mayor's Sunnyside plan to the Hudson Yards project being built on Manhattan's west side, where a platform over the railroad tracks is expected to cost $750 million, according to published reports.

It was not clear how much the platform and development in Sunnyside would cost.

"It's an expensive way to buy land," Hersh said. "If you spend a lot of money to build a platform over the yard, you need to build a lot of units to justify that. You need to have a dense project."

Sunnyside Yards is in a "great" location in terms of accessibility, Hersh said. And since the site is partly owned by the MTA — some acres of which the city has air rights to — it makes it a more attractive development prospect than if it were entirely owned by private parties.

Building big is the way de Blasio will be able to reach his affordable housing goals, Hersh added.

"In order to produce the 200,000 units that the mayor talked about building or saving, you’ve got to do big projects," he said.

The site's 200-acre size is both a draw and a challenge, according to Christopher Jones, vice president of research with Regional Plan Association, who said they were "very glad to see the mayor put this on the table."

"There's almost no place left in New York City where you can look at an area that large, that could potentially support so many of the things the city needs," he said. "The challenge, of course, is that in order to build over an active rail yard of that size, it is going to be incredibly expensive."

It could take years, likely more than a decade, for a project of this size to get off the ground, experts said.

"The history of large development projects in New York is they have to go through several iterations before they're actually built," Jones said. "That’s why its really important to get this discussion going now."

The mayor's office will soon launch a feasibility study to assess the costs and infrastructure needs that developing Sunnyside Yards would require, a spokesman said.

The MTA declined to comment. Amtrak, which owns much of the yards, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Jerilyn Perine, executive director of the Citizens Housing Planning Council, said studying the rail yards for housing makes sense.

"I'm not saying that it's not complicated — I'm sure there's many, many technical issues, of course, but let's take a hard look at them," she said, adding that the city has successfully built projects of this magnitude before.

"We have taken on these kinds of big challenges of reshaping our infrastructure in different ways," she said. "We should just remind ourselves that it is possible."

Busy Bee Feb 21, 2015 6:24 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by NYguy (Post 6922569)
Looking to get back on the railyard bandwagon, the Bronx wants to build...

The Bedford Park yard has the most potential. It's location right off the GC and the fact that Tracy Towers is already decked over the northern part of the yard, it seems obvious.

149 St is also good. You've got the Morrisania air rights towers just up the way that did this in the 70s. You could probably build 4,000-6,000 here alone.

As for the Riverdale yard I just don't see it being worth the effort. Too small, not dense enough around there to justify, plus I've always liked the visibility of that yard next to the football field. It's cool, don't deck over every yard in town, rail fans will be very unhappy.

antinimby Feb 21, 2015 7:40 PM
What's with all the baseball and track fields in the Bronx? All three aerials have them.

BrownTown Feb 21, 2015 11:08 PM
It sure seems like it would be cheaper in all three of those places to just tear down some old low-density blocks and replace them with towers. The last one is especially silly as it looks like it's right next to a bunch of suburban style single family homes.

NYguy Feb 24, 2015 2:17 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by antinimby (Post 6923938)
What's with all the baseball and track fields in the Bronx? All three aerials have them.
There are schools/colleges in the Bronx. I don't think it's a lot more overall than the rest of the city, except Manhattan.


http://www.nycedc.com/opportunity/su...t-services-rfp

Sunnyside Yards Feasibility Study, Consultant Services RFP

Submission Deadline March 20, 2015 at 4:00 pm


Quote:
New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) is seeking a consultant or consultant team to study the engineering and financial feasibility of developing atop Sunnyside Yards in Queens.

The purpose of this Feasibility Study is to provide guidance as to the viability of an overbuild project at Sunnyside Yards, and to provide recommendations for the implementation of such a project.

The Project is envisioned as a comprehensive and detailed assessment that considers all of the relevant aspects needed to establish the feasibility of developing any potential program at Sunnyside Yards, including technical, environmental, and financial analyses.

To make that determination, the Consultant shall holistically evaluate specific factors such as the technical/physical configuration and requirements of proposed deck structures over the rail yards, infrastructure/utility requirements, costs, local impacts, environmental issues, and implementation strategies.

The Consultant shall provide and/or procure certain planning, engineering, cost estimating, public outreach, and preliminary design services related to the Project.



http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/21/ny...epot.html?_r=0

Despite Cuomo’s Opposition, de Blasio Requests Housing Proposals for Queens Rail Depot


By MATT FLEGENHEIMER
FEB. 20, 2015


Quote:
The de Blasio administration moved forward on Friday with a plan to reimagine a Queens rail depot as a haven for affordable housing, issuing a request for proposals to study the feasibility of developing the area known as Sunnyside Yards.

But the study will, at least initially, exclude portions of the site owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority — an agency controlled by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, whose office has chafed at the idea.

In a statement on Friday, Mayor Bill de Blasio, who hopes to build more than 11,000 units of affordable housing on the site, called the project “a tremendous opportunity to deliver on our vision of a more affordable city.”

Amtrak, which owns much of the depot, has expressed an openness to the plan, and on Friday it praised what it called the mayor’s “leadership in advancing this effort.”

State officials have been less charitable. Hours after Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, announced his ambitions during his State of the City address this month, the governor’s chief spokeswoman issued a statement calling the yards “an important facility for our transportation system.”

“It is not available for any other use in the near term,” the spokeswoman, Melissa DeRosa, said.

On Friday, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, John P.L. Kelly, said, “Nothing’s changed from the state’s position.”

The episode is the latest in a series of high-profile rifts between the mayor and the governor — complicated, in this case, by the tangled ownership structure at the yards. (After the speech, several senior officials with the transit agency abruptly pulled out of a long-scheduled meeting to discuss the project with the city.)

Asked on Friday if there was any feasible way for the yards to be developed without the transportation authority’s blessing, the office of the governor, a Democrat, said it would be up to the city to decide.

The transportation authority declined to comment when asked the same question, and Amtrak did not respond.

Wiley Norvell, a spokesman for the mayor, said city officials “hope and anticipate everyone being able to come together and collaborate here.” Mr. Norvell said any eventual plan would preserve existing rail service and account for future transportation needs at the site.

He noted that the request for proposals, from the city’s Economic Development Corporation, was designed to allow the transportation authority’s part of the yards to be included later on.

“At the project team’s option, M.T.A.’s property may or may not be included in the feasibility study,” the proposal said.

Transportation experts seem convinced that a united front will be required to develop the site.

“You can do a feasibility study that looks at just different options for the site, what the engineering and environmental issues are, those broad issues,” said Christopher Jones, vice president for research at the Regional Plan Association. “But certainly to get very far into planning for the site, the M.T.A. is going to have to be intricately involved.”


http://www.capitalnewyork.com/articl...s-housing-plan

By Sally Goldenberg
Feb. 20, 2015

Quote:
.....the vast majority of the site is owned by Amtrak, which has been receptive to de Blasio's idea.

In an apparent move to avoid further conflict with Cuomo, the R.F.P. only seeks a study for the area owned by Amtrak and the city, which has air rights to some of the acreage. Wiley Norvell, a de Blasio spokesman, said the study could be broadened in the future to include the M.T.A.-owned land.

It's not clear exactly how many acres each of the stakeholders owns.

Estimates from the city, state and other parties have varied.

The M.T.A. has told Capital the land consists of 160 acres, not 200 as the city contends, and that the agency owns 34 of them. The city put the overall size at "approximately 200 acres," according to the R.F.P., and has said Amtrak owns 113 acres and that the M.T.A. owns 66, of which the city owns the air rights on 44. The city believes private owners control the remaining acres, which lie at the eastern edge of the site.

Norvell said the study will clear up confusion over the acreage breakdown.


I think in the end, everyone will come together. Amtrak has more say over what gets eventually gets done here.


Quote:
...Amtrak, the largest landowner at the 200-acre site in western Queens, is supportive of his idea of decking over the rail yards and building affordable housing on top, and the city owns air rights on 44 of the acres owned by the state-controlled Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

...Amtrak released a statement saying, "We are working with the city and others to understand what potential exists for this incredibly unique site and recognize and support the mayor's strong interest in advancing affordable housing as part of any major new development."

Nothing will happen soon. Amtrak has said it doesn't expect to conduct a feasibility study until 2016.

sparkling Mar 24, 2015 1:21 PM
Northern Manhattan rail yard eyed for housing, tech

ANDREW J. HAWKINS
MARCH 24, 2015
Quote:
A little more than a month after Mayor Bill de Blasio announced an ambitious (and surely expensive) plan to build 70,000 apartments on top of the Sunnyside Yard in Queens, a Manhattan councilman is eyeing another active rail yard for housing construction.
Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez proposed Sunday to rezone a 100-acre "manufacturing area" in the northern Manhattan neighborhood of Inwood and transform it into a "technology community," complete with residential, commercial and retail development.

He would put most of the housing above the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's 207th Street rail yard.

Decking over an active rail yard is an expensive proposition; at Hudson Yards in western Manhattan, it is costing $700 million. But in an interview with Crain's Monday, Mr. Rodriguez said some of the expense could be defrayed if the MTA would sell its air rights to the city.

"If the city is able to work with the MTA and build above the rail yard, it will help us to bring more revenue for transportation, and also using the air rights in that location," he said.

Any proposal to build above the 207th Street yard, which is bordered by 10th Avenue to the east, the Harlem River to the west, 207th and 215th streets, would have to go through Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who already dismissed Mr. de Blasio's plan to build housing at Sunnyside Yards.

The mayor's office insists that despite the governor's reticence, it continues to talk to the MTA about Sunnyside. A feasibility study was ordered last month to determine the cost of the massive project. The economics of affordable housing are already challenging without the additional expense of building over an active rail yard, experts say.

The 207th Street yard serves the C, A and No. 1 trains. It also stores cars that are being retired and either scrapped or restored for the New York Transit Museum.

A spokesman for the mayor said of the Inwood proposal, "We applaud [Councilman] Rodriguez' leadership. We look forward to working with his office and the community to bring much-needed affordable housing and economic development opportunities to this vibrant neighborhood."
A spokesman for the MTA declined to comment.

Inwood, perched on the northernmost tip of Manhattan, isn't on Mr. de Blasio's list of neighborhoods to rezone for denser, taller housing. But Mr. Rodriguez is undeterred. In his speech Sunday, which was attended by Kyle Kimball, president of the city's Economic Development Corp., Mr. Rodriguez said he envisions a mixed-use community spearheaded by large institutions like CUNY and New York Presbyterian, and attractive to some of the world's most recognizable tech companies.

"Imagine having our very own marketplace for technological innovations, creating an environment that will attract advanced research and partners such as Google, Apple or Facebook," he said. "Yes! We will make this dream a reality."

Mr. Rodriguez's plan may also encounter opposition from manufacturing and industrial businesses, which are increasingly feeling pinched by Mr. de Blasio's crusade to build 240,000 units of market-rate and affordable housing over the next decade. Many business owners say the mayor's plan, a hotel boom and other commercial ventures is driving up rents and land prices in manufacturing zones.

The councilman said his plan is unlikely to encounter resistance within the proposed area, if only because there are "not many things happening there right now." In addition to the rail yard, it has a beer distributor, a supermarket and a handful of nightlife lounges and restaurants.
"No one has to be displaced from the area," Mr. Rodriguez said. "It can be a win-win situation."
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/apps/pb...20150323174922

Busy Bee Mar 24, 2015 7:38 PM
Isn't this essentially an iteration of the Sherman Creek redevelopment concept which has been around for years?

chris08876 Apr 17, 2015 4:47 PM
http://therealdeal.com/wp-content/up...meline-BIG.gif

http://s14.therealdeal.com/trd/up/20...-Owns-What.gif

http://s14.therealdeal.com/trd/up/20...side-Yards.gif
Credit: http://therealdeal.com/issues_articl...nnyside-yards/

chris08876 Apr 23, 2015 4:28 PM
As Sunnyside Yards Divides LIC, Real Estate Pros Propose Closing the Gap

https://nyocommercialobserver.files....ide-yards.jpeg

Quote:
Long Island City is divided, so to speak.

The bustling neighborhood in western Queens has seen a lot of development in the last decade, but portions of it remain split by the sprawling Sunnyside Yards—a holding area for Amtrak, Metropolitan Transportation Authority and New Jersey Transit trains. While talks are early and controversial on proposals to build affordable housing above the tracks, real estate professionals in LIC believe some sort of link between the commercial side and the mixed-use side could help the neighborhood—both in the short term and in the long run.

“There’s an opportunity to make those connections without platforming over the whole thing and building tens of millions of square feet,” said David Dishy, the president of development and acquisition for L+M Development Partners, while speaking on a panel at the LIC Partnership’s annual real estate breakfast today. “I think coming out of [discussions by the city] will be a short-term achievable set of opportunities on the board.”

L+M Development Partners owns 26-14 Jackson Avenue, a 98-unit rental building, between Purves Street and 44th Drive. The building sits just north of the railyard—across it is the 33th Street station for the 7 train. Mr. Dishy said his company has been proactive in looking at short-term ways to bridge the area, including building up portions of the neighborhood bordering Sunnyside Yards.

A lot of the activity in LIC has been focused on the north side of the rail yard where Court Square, home to Citibank and CUNY Law School, and Queens Plaza, home to JetBlue’s corporate offices, have emerged as commercial hubs in the last 10 years. The south SIDE features a slew of factories-turned-office space, but also some of key amenities and institutions including LaGuardia Community College, an ice rink and an indoor paintball course.

Emmes Asset Management owns 47-16 Austell Place between Skillman Avenue and 27th Street—right along the southern portion of the rail yard. Panelist Seble Tareke Williams, the managing director of the New York City Interborough Fund at Emmes, said today that while it’s exciting that one of the city’s largest land parcels is being discussed, getting something rolling might be a long way off.

“It’s extremely complex,” Ms. Williams said. “I would love to say that something will happen in my lifetime. It’s exciting that there’s real conversations happening. [But] it takes time. It is a bit of a divide, but we think it provides some character. It’s literally a five-minute walk down Skillman from us to the 7 train. ”

Mayor Bill de Blasio in his State of the City address earlier this year proposed a Hudson Yards-like platform over the railyard to make it the foundation for a sprawling affordable housing complex. Former Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff, who served under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, last November pitched the idea of building a platform, but with a convention center atop to replace the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on the Far West Side.

The city’s Economic Development Corporation will announce this spring the winning bid to do a feasibility study of the area. The study will examine current and future rail layouts, whether a platform can be built over them and how infrastructure could be set up, according to the EDC. Examining the area is expected to last about a year.

An audience member raised the question to Mr. Dishy and Ms. Williams on whether their companies have considered or supported foot bridges spanning the yards from the south side to Court Square, which houses a subway station for the E, M, G and 7 lines. Ms. Williams said her firm hasn’t, and that its more focused on making 47-16 Austell Place an attractive building worth crossing the yards for.

“I think generally speaking, the connectivity is a big question,” she said. “We’ve been more micro-focused on making our building attractive enough that people want to be there. And they’re willing to just walk over from Court Square.”
================================
http://commercialobserver.com/2015/0...osing-the-gap/

chris08876 Dec 3, 2015 2:31 AM
Key Queens councilman opposes mega-towers near Sunnyside Yards

Jimmy Van Bramer, who serves Western Queens, says his constituents don't want a 50-story building as part of de Blasio's proposed plan to redevelop the rail yard :koko:

Quote:
Jimmy Van Bramer is the city councilman for the 26th District, serving Long Island City,Astoria, Sunnyside and Woodside. As the majority leader of the council, Van Bramer is the second-highest-ranking member behind the speaker. He is also a key member of the council’s budget negotiating team, which advocates for its funding agenda.

The city is planning to rezone LIC. What's the plan?

Long Island City is the epicenter of growth in Queens, and the administration sees an opportunity. Rather than one-off developments and individual variance requests, the idea is to bring in parts of Northern Boulevard, Queens Plaza and all of Jackson Avenue and some adjoining streets, and have a master plan.

How many units altogether could be built as a result of the rezoning?

Thousands of units of additional housing, and if you allow for 25% to 30% to be affordable, you’re talking about a significant number.

What is the timing?

By mid- to late 2016, they will move to certify. They have to get East New York’s rezoning out of the way, and then Long Island City is next.

What's been the response from your constituents?

People are terrified that we would see 50-story mega-towers dwarfing these low-rise communities. I agree with them on that. I need to have reassurance we’ll never have 40- or 50-story towers anywhere near the Astoria and Sunnyside portions of the yards. It’s also hard to imagine Western Queens’ taking in the number of additional units that would be needed to make the Sunnyside Yards financially feasible. I have doubts about the endeavor.

Tishman Speyer is building three Long Island City towers using 421-a benefits, but providing no affordable housing because of a quirk in the old 421-a plan. Does that frustrate you?

Look, the quirks in the previous legislation in Albany are frustrating. Rob Speyer and Tishman Speyer are folks who have done good things. I appreciate that. On the one remaining lot that they own—the Gotham site adjoining the Department of Health building—they’ll build affordable housing. I have met with Rob, and I am hopeful that we can work that out with them.

Who pays?

The mayor put aside $1 billion for infrastructure improvements for the neighborhoods that will be rezoned. Mayor Bill de Blasio suggested the city should develop thousands of residential units over Sunnyside Yards.

Would you like to become speaker of the council?

You can’t be in leadership or the majority leader without having an interest in the speaker’s role. I look forward to hopefully being re-elected to the City Council for another four years in 2017, and then we’ll see what happens.
==========================
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...unnyside-yards

yankeesfan1000 Dec 4, 2015 12:25 AM
These are the same people who complain that NY housing is too expensive. Unreal.

scalziand Dec 4, 2015 6:14 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by sparkling (Post 6962492)
I've been keeping my eye on that yard for a while now. Too bad it's not transit connected enough to became another office district.

NYguy Oct 31, 2016 4:11 PM
http://ny.curbed.com/2016/10/28/1345...ment-plans-nyc

Study of Hudson Yards-style development eyed for Sunnyside delayed

BY EMILY NONKO
OCT 28, 2016


Quote:
The city asked FXFowle Architects, Parsons Brinckerhoff and HR&A Advisors to conduct the study more than one year ago. Although it was due this summer, "the study will not be completed for several more months or even a year from now," Crain’s found out from a source.

NYguy Feb 6, 2017 9:59 PM
https://therealdeal.com/2017/02/06/d...b-19b-nyc-edc/

De Blasio’s Sunnyside Yard proposal would cost $16B-$19B: NYC EDC
Roughly 85% of the 180-acre site could be developed, study claims


https://s12.therealdeal.com/trd/up/2...de-Yards-2.jpg


February 06, 2017


Quote:
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s proposal to deck and develop Sunnyside Yard in Queens could feasibly cover 85 percent of the 180-acre site at a cost ranging from $16 billion to $19 billion, according to a new study published by the New York City Economic Development Corporation.

When the mayor pitched the idea to develop the sprawling rail yard during his second State of the City address in early 2015, critics said it would be too costly to make affordable housing work.

Among the naysayers was Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who floated the idea of building a convention center on the site before later committing to overhaul the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.

Now de Blasio has a study backing up his grand idea, albeit one from a friendly agency, the EDC, Crain’s reported.

“Sunnyside Yard represents one of our greatest opportunities to invest in the affordable housing, good jobs, open space and public transit western Queens needs,” deputy mayor for housing and economic development Alicia Glen, said in a statement released with the report.

The proposal to develop the rail yard does come with complications that go beyond engineering.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Amtrak and New Jersey Transit – none of which is controlled by the city – all use the sprawling rail yard. The EDC study considered three development scenarios. The first would be predominantly residential with up to 24,000 apartments. The second would be a combination of residential, commercial and retail space. The third scenario would have no commercial space, but would include space for cultural or retail tenants that would be attractive to city residents.

It’s unclear, though, what impact the study will have on the mayor’s proposal moving forward. De Blasio is sure to face opposition from local Queens residents who oppose development.


http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...sio-pipe-dream

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/apps/pb...creen&maxw=770


City study: Massive Queens project is no de Blasio pipe dream
Building a new neighborhood over Sunnyside rail yard is feasible, administration asserts

Joe Anuta By Joe Anuta
Feb 6, 2017

NYguy Feb 6, 2017 10:36 PM
A lot to ready through, but I just went through and grabbed a few graphics until I can absorb the study...



https://www.scribd.com/document/3385...udy#from_embed


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http://m1.i.pbase.com/o9/06/102706/1...rdrailsite.jpg

yankeesfan1000 Feb 7, 2017 12:36 AM
The below, gives further scale.

https://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/uploads/cho...2.21.44_PM.png

NYguy Feb 7, 2017 6:58 PM
http://www.politico.com/states/new-y...lopment-109392

Study highlights challenges, potential for Sunnyside Yard development


http://static2.politico.com/dims4/de...side-yards.jpg


By SALLY GOLDENBERG
02/06/17


Quote:
Sunnyside Yard, a 180-acre parcel in Queens that has intrigued and eluded developers and planners for nearly a century, has been given a blueprint for growth, but any plan to build on the site would face enormous challenges.

Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration on Monday released a $2.5 million study it commissioned from 11 private consultants to figure out what could be built if the rail yard were to be decked over and primed for development.
Quote:
...The consultants sketched out three development possibilities that would yield anywhere from 14,000 to 24,000 housing units, up to 5,300 parking spots and 500,000 to 900,000 square feet of retail. The proposal with the least amount of residential space —14,000 to 19,000 units — would include approximately 5 million square feet of Class A and creative office space.

The designs all call for at least 10 schools, land set aside for mixed-use space, and rent-regulated housing for low- to moderate-income tenants.

Each plan would use at least 20 million square feet of floor area, while preserving between 31 and 52 acres for open space.

And, the authors noted, they are all designed to take into account improvements Amtrak laid out for Sunnyside Yard in its 2014 master plan.
Quote:
.....The Regional Plan Association's Chris Jones said the study shows a "financially feasible" pathway to developing Sunnyside Yard, "but there's obviously a lot of really big hurdles that you'd have to get over for any of them."

He said the rail yard has held the ambitions of planners since at least 1929, when a plan was conceived for a giant skyscraper on the site. A rendering of the fleeting goal hangs in his office.

"There's no other location like it left in the city that has that much acreage, that's that close to the Manhattan central business district and that has a number of train lines connected to it," he said in an interview. "In that sense there's nothing else that has the same potential as Sunnyside Yards. But there are few places that have as many of the challenges either, or else it would've been done already."

Sky88 Feb 14, 2017 8:01 PM
This is just a Blasio's dream project and nothing more.

NYguy Feb 14, 2017 11:57 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sky88 (Post 7711871)
This is just a Blasio's dream project and nothing more.
Every project is a "dream" project at some point. There are years of study and planning before any major project, let alone one of this scale, can get built.

yankeesfan1000 Mar 29, 2018 4:04 PM
Sunnyside Yard megaproject may have a master planner

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/eX3c....09_AM.0.0.png

"...Crain’s reports that Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU), the studio founded by former SHoP Architects partner Vishaan Chakrabarti, has been tapped through a request for proposals to conceptualize what the Queens megaproject could look like. PAU declined to comment and the city’s Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), who issued the request for proposals in November, told Crain’s that it has not officially designated a team...

...The leading proposal put forth in the study would see the creation of between 18,000 and 24,000 apartments, of which about 30 percent would be earmarked as affordable housing.

That proposal would also create between 13 and 19 schools, 38 and 52 acres of open space, and retail..."

chris08876 Mar 30, 2018 2:12 PM
18-24k units within 180 acres is nice. Quite high density.

yankeesfan1000 May 3, 2018 1:20 PM
Sunnyside Yard megaproject is no longer just a pipe dream

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/J8ii...e_yard_0.0.jpg

"The Sunnyside Yard megaproject is no longer just a pipe dream; On Thursday, the city and Amtrak jointly confirmed the news that it had hired Vishaan Chakrabarti’s Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU) as lead consultant to form a master plan for the proposed megadevelopment.

The city and Amtrak also announced the creation of the Sunnyside Yard Steering Committee, which will spend the next 18 months organizing public meetings and workshops to elicit feedback from Queens residents on how best to proceed with the megaproject’s development, and address the needs of local residents.

The steering committee will work in tandem with the group of consultants to formulate a master plan for the development. The approximately 35-member committee is comprised of a variety of local stakeholders and technical experts such as Gail Mellow, the president of LaGuardia Community College, Denise Keehan-Smith, the chair of Queens Community Board 2, and Felix Ciampa, the executive director of the Urban Land Institute of New York. The committee will be co-chaired by Elizabeth Lusskin, the president of the Long Island City Partnership, and Sharon Greenberger, the CEO of the YMCA of Greater New York...

...This new steering committee will use that as a basis for their master plan; many of the details in that plan still remain intact: Decking is possible on 80-85 percent of site, which totals 180 acres of space. This could see the creation of up to 24,000 homes, 19 schools, and 52 acres of public parks...

...The master planning process for this newest iteration of the plan will officially get underway this summer, and the steering committee will meet once every quarter over the 18 month planning process..."

chris08876 May 4, 2018 12:35 PM
Sunnyside Yard planning process to launch this summer

Quote:
The de Blasio administration and Amtrak will begin crafting a development plan for Sunnyside Yard in Queens this summer, city and Amtrak officials will announce today.

The master planning team will be led by Vishaan Chakrabarti's architecture firm, Practice for Architecture and Urbanism, which was first reported by Crain's in March.

"This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for civic groups, public officials and residents to create a vision for their borough," Alicia Glen, Housing and Urban Development deputy mayor, said in a statement.

The city has carved out a position within the Economic Development Corp. to oversee the process and announced a steering committee composed of roughly two dozen local and citywide stakeholders to provide input. Last year a city study found that about 80% of the 180-acre yard could be decked over and covered with 24,000 apartments, along with schools, parks and other infrastructure, at a cost of $19 billion. The master planning process is expected to take around two years and will come up with a more specific blueprint of what could be constructed.

The city and Amtrak have signed a letter of intent to formalize their collaboration, a key step because the federal rail operator controls most of the yard and is making a number of upgrades to its infrastructure that could otherwise conflict with the city's aims. While the accord decreases the chances of major obstacles, it does not guarantee a smooth planning process.
=====================
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...ch-this-summer

patriotizzy May 4, 2018 5:24 PM
Hudson Yards v2?

Crawford May 4, 2018 6:41 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by patriotizzy (Post 8176945)
Hudson Yards v2?
It better be.

If this isn't a giant forest of 70 floor towers, it should be labeled a disappointment. This is the perfect location (tons of transit and right next to Midtown) for intense high density.

In some ways it's better located than Hudson Yards (geographically closer to and faster subway/train ride to the Midtown core). But I don't doubt there will be some community pushback.

NYguy Sep 24, 2018 6:00 PM
Just from some planning, but if they ever got this kind of density built over and around the yards, it would be among one of the greatest accomplishments in the City.



https://dynamicstarllc.com/data/files/capturess.png
https://dynamicstarllc.com/1_21_portfolio.html

Busy Bee Sep 24, 2018 6:08 PM
You know I've been wondering, as I've been following these East Side Access construction updates from the Sunnyside Yards construction, is the MTA even casually planning for or accounting for the potential locations of deck and foundation locations in the yard if these SY vision proposals ever move into fruition?

NYguy Sep 24, 2018 6:49 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Busy Bee (Post 8324825)
You know I've been wondering, as I've been following these East Side Access construction updates from the Sunnyside Yards construction, is the MTA even casually planning for or accounting for the potential locations of deck and foundation locations in the yard if these SY vision proposals ever move into fruition?

This is a good idea on the thinking so far...


Quote:
2017 Feasibility Study: Is it technically feasible to deck over Sunnyside Yard?

The Sunnyside Yard Feasibility Study, released in February 2017, was the first comprehensive analysis to understand the technical feasibility of decking over active rail and related facilities in Sunnyside Yard. The study found that decking and construction is feasible in the majority of the yard, with approximately 15 to 20 percent infeasible, predominantly over the highly trafficked Main Line. The study tested several hypothetical scenarios and identified certain sections of the yard that are ideal for different types of buildings and others for a range of parks, roads, and open spaces.

https://www.nycedc.com/sites/default...ve-Summary.pdf

https://www.nycedc.com/sites/default...ull-Report.pdf


I'm sure everything is being taken into account by the planning team.


https://www.nycedc.com/project/sunnyside-yard


Quote:
Through the drafting of a Master Plan, the City and Amtrak will work with local and regional stakeholders to develop a vision and framework to guide investments and address the needs of the adjacent growing neighborhoods, borough, city, and region.

The Master Planning process will focus on developing a vision and planning framework that will guide the incremental steps of a potential long-term overbuild development. While it will build on the technical findings of the feasibility study released early last year, the master planning process is an opportunity for stakeholders to take a fresh look at opportunities.
Quote:
Sunnyside Yard Steering Committee, hosted by Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development Alicia Glen and Amtrak Chairman Anthony Coscia:

Co-Chairs:

Sharon Greenberger – President and CEO of the YMCA of Greater New York
Elizabeth Lusskin – President of the Long Island City Partnership

Members:

Angela Pinsky – Executive Director, Association for Better New York
April Simpson – President, Queensbridge NYCHA Tenants Association
Bob LaCroix – Retired, Amtrak
Carlo Scissura – President and CEO, Building Congress
Dean Devita- Secretary-Treasurer, National Conference of Firemen & Oilers
Deborah Alexander – Co-President, Community Education Council 30
Denise Keehan-Smith – Chair, Community Board 2
Elizabeth Erion and Gerry Caliendo – Land Use Committee Chairs, Community Board 1
Felix Ciampa – Executive Director, Urban Land Institute New York
Gail Mellow – President, LaGuardia Community College
Gary LaBarbera – President, Building and Construction Trades Council
George Stamatiades – President, Dutch Kills Civic Association
Holly Leicht – EVP, Real Estate and Planning, Empire State Development
Jaime-Faye Bean – Executive Director, Sunnyside Shines BID
Janno N. Lieber – Chief Development Officer, MTA
Jonathan Bowles – Executive Director, Center for an Urban Future
Judy Zangwill – Executive Director, Sunnyside Community Services
Lisa Deller – Land Use Committee Chair, Community Board 2
Lynne Sagalyn – Professor, Columbia University
Marie Torniali – President, Steinway Astoria Partnership BID
Mary Ceruti – Executive Director and Chief Curator, SculptureCenter
Melissa Orlando – Executive Director and Founder, Access Queens
Mitchell Moss – Director of Rudin Center, NYU
Pedro Gomez – President, Court Square Civic
Sheila Lewandowski – Member, LIC Cultural Alliance
Sylvia White – Co-Chair, Justice for All Coalition
Thomas J. Grech – President & Chief Executive Officer, Queens Chamber of Commerce
Tom Wright – President, Regional Plan Association

Quote:
Master Planning Consultant Team:

Led by Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU), the multidisciplinary consultant team includes:

-Thornton Tomasetti (Structural Engineering)
-HNTB (Rail Engineering)
-Sam Schwartz Engineering (Mobility Planning & Engineering)
-Langan (Environmental Planning, Geotech, & Civil Engineering)
-Nelson Byrd Woltz (Landscape Architecture)
-Assess+RE (Financial Modeling)
-CBRE (Market Analysis)
-Dharam (Costing & Risk)
-Municap (Public Finance)
-Urbane (Stakeholder Engagement)
-Carlo Ratti Associati (Futurist)

Gantz Sep 24, 2018 7:57 PM
I just hope they unify the street grid, so it would seamlessly connect the neighborhoods, and not just have this weird formless master-planned blob shape.

chris08876 Jan 28, 2019 5:26 AM
Friday, March 1, 2019 6:00 PM there is a public meeting/work shop for Sunnyside Yards.

Events: https://www.sunnysideyard.nyc/events...onal-workshops

NYguy Apr 1, 2019 10:42 PM
I'm convinced that the public is too dumb to be involved in any planning process, but good luck.



• Video Link




https://astoriapost.com/city-present...in-unconvinced

City Presents Sunnyside Yards as An ‘Enormous Opportunity’, Many Remain Unconvinced


March 31, 2019
By Christian Murray


Quote:
Hundreds of residents packed out P.S. 166 in Astoria last Tuesday to provide their feedback on what they would like to see—or not see—on the 180-acre Sunnyside Yard.

The three-hour meeting was organized by the NYC Economic Development Corporation and Amtrak as they look to seek the public’s input as they create a masterplan for the massive site.

They presented the development of the yard as a generational opportunity, where the site could be used for open space, affordable housing, community facilities and commercial industry.

Meanwhile, as the meeting began, members of the anti-gentrification group Queens Neighborhoods United were handing out flyers entitled, “Raising Questions About Sunnyside Yard.”
Quote:
The masterplan, which is expected to be completed by the end of the year, will result in a framework that details all aspects of the development for decades to come, including the various phases and timelines. About 80 percent of the site can be developed, according to the EDC’s 2017 feasibility study.

Despite fears of imminent development among the skeptics, the EDC tried to reduce those anxieties by saying that the plan is for future generations and nothing was happening soon.

“At this point we are focused on creating a collaborative vision, a master planning process through the end of the year,” said Cali Williams, director of Sunnyside Yard for the EDC. “Any future development is not imminent. There is no set plan. We are working on developing a plan together and before any development happens there would need to be approvals…so we are years away from construction.”
Quote:
Statements like these didn’t placate many attendees’ fears. The fact, according to some, that the EDC is working on a master plan is indicative that something big is coming. One attendee from Sunnyside asked the EDC why the city wasn’t investing in existing neighborhoods that lacked infrastructure as opposed to creating a new one.

Williams shot back.

“I think it’s important while planning for improvements in existing infrastructure to also be thinking long-term,” she said. “Sunnyside Yards provides an opportunity to think about what local stakeholders … need in the near-term as well as future generations.”
Quote:
Vishaan Chakrabarti, the leader of the project’s master planning consulting team and the founder of Practice for Architecture and Urbanism, gave a run-down of the possibilities that could be done with the site.

Chakrabarti said that the yard has enormous potential.

“It’s the largest available site in New York and in the center of the region. It is well connected to the airports, right for world class institutions…but on a local level could provide major public space, jobs and affordable housing.”

He discussed some of the challenges. For instance, to deck over the yards, a platform would have to be built over the tracks that would need to be 30 to 35 feet in height in order for the trains to clear—equating to at three stories. Connections would then have to be made from the platform to surrounding streets and done so in a way to integrate them with adjacent neighborhoods.

Any project would be done in phases, Chakrabarti said, and it is difficult to tell what areas of the Yard would be built up first.

He said from an urban planning and design standpoint it would make sense to start at the Long Island City core, but from a rail engineering standpoint the eastern section of the yard would be less complex.

The development may not involve a series of 30 to 40 story towers, as was presented in the 2017 feasibility study. Chakrabarti said that they are looking to explore buildings that would rise 6 to 15 stories in a more tabletop layout.
Quote:
Chakrabarti said they have had a lot of positive feedback since May 2018 when the master plan process began, with a strong focus being on affordable housing, public space and added infrastructure.

“To be fair there are people who have said don’t do anything with the yard–but we have many people who have said: ‘We need affordable housing, we need fixes to our infrastructure, we need jobs, we need open space.”

The EDC plans to host four public workshops on the masterplan in April and May, with more to be held in over the summer. There will also be two more public meets scheduled this year.

chris08876 Jul 18, 2019 1:47 AM
City guides Sunnyside Yard review in increasingly progressive Queens

Quote:
A few miles east of where a progressive wave in Queens has swamped a proposed housing and retail development, city officials are gathering final community feedback on a development plan for a lot six times larger than Hudson Yards.

That would be Sunnyside Yard, the 180-acre train yard where the city believes a deck could allow the building of thousands of apartments.


City Limits published an update of the planning process for the site Wednesday. The team of roughly two dozen planners, community members and consultants that the city Economic Development Corp. convened to review the project are about two-thirds through the 18-month development of a master plan.

The city expects the master plan to provide more detailed options for how to build a deck over the majority of the western Queens rail yard. A 2017 feasibility study from the city estimated that the land could host 24,000 apartments, along with schools, parks and other infrastructure, for a cost of about $19 billion. That could take a half-century or more to fully build. The city has said it wants a long-term plan in place to ensure that Amtrak, which owns most of the yard, can take the blueprint into consideration as it upgrades its own facilities.

EDC officials have made an effort to hear out residents, including launching an informational session and hosting public listening sessions and workshops. Those events have been well attended, City Limits noted, with residents pushing for 100% affordable-housing and low- to mid-rise buildings for any new development on the land.

But some prominent Queens politicians are questioning whether residents will be heard. Both Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer and a spokesperson for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were critical of the outreach efforts in interviews with the publication.

“I don’t like what EDC is proposing for Sunnyside Yard,” Van Bramer told City Limits. “There are certainly listening sessions run by EDC, but it remains to be seen if people are really being heard.”

The city has described the project as the chance for a critical capital investment in a borough expected to grow by 80,000 people in the next 20 years. The EDC plans to host another public meeting sometime in the fall, with the master plan published in the winter.
============
https://www.crainsnewyork.com/real-e...ressive-queens

Busy Bee Jul 18, 2019 3:49 AM
The notion that it could take 50 years or more to complete is absurd. At most, the entire build out should take 20.

NYguy Nov 15, 2019 2:28 AM
https://sunnysidepost.com/new-yorks-...monday-meeting

City’s EDC Releases Sunnyside Yard Design Concepts at Monday Meeting

https://sunnysidepost.com/wp-content...917_120038.jpg


Sept. 17, 2019
By Shane O’Brien


Quote:
The Economic Development Corporation put forward a number of plans for the 180-acre site. They included a sprawling 60-acre parks system; residential and business districts; roads and bikes lanes; and a new Sunnyside train station, which would serve as a transport hub connecting western Queens with the wider region.
Quote:
The masterplan, which is expected to be completed by the end of the year, will provide a framework that underpins all aspects of the development for decades to come, including the various phases and timelines.

There are plans for a centralized greenway running the length of the Sunnyside Yard project and a large park at the Long Island City end of the yard. The EDC also hopes to double the size of Lou Lodati Park in Sunnyside and add several smaller parks around the perimeter of the Yard.
Quote:
Vishaan Chakrabarti, the leader of the project’s master planning consulting team, said that the EDC wanted to install a variety of parks, including recreational parks featuring basketball courts and other sports as well as family space.

The EDC also provided details for a road grid at Monday’s meeting. The city plans to develop identically sized blocks and a number of different types of thoroughfares at Sunnyside Yard.

There are plans for shared streets for cars, cyclists and pedestrians as well as plans for the centralized greenway. The shared streets would have a maximum speed limit of 5-10 mph.
Quote:
There is also a plan to install a corridor on either side of the yard. The corridors would run the length of the yard and connect existing regions in Long Island City and Sunnyside. They would also be used for bus routes.

The EDC plans to develop a train station, which would potentially be serviced by Amtrak, LIRR and Metro North.
Quote:
The EDC has also developed plans for several retail and office hubs on the yard. The draft plan places offices close to existing job clusters and mass transportation in Long Island City and along Northern Boulevard.

Chakrabarti said that the majority of buildings in Sunnyside Yard would be mid-rise, between eight and 18 stories and he said that such a height was not uncommon for the surrounding area. Some of the plans displayed at the meeting, however, did note that buildings of 30-50 stories are being planned.
Quote:
The EDC said that the project would be built in phases and may take up to 100 years to fully complete. The organization did not say what its next steps would be after the completion of the master plan.


https://sunnysidepost.com/wp-content...7_115952-1.jpg



https://sunnysidepost.com/wp-content...917_120136.jpg

Busy Bee Nov 15, 2019 3:03 AM
Quote:
The EDC said that the project would be built in phases and may take up to 100 years to fully complete.
Just shoot me


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