NEW YORK | 418 11th Ave | FT | FLOORS

[TonyNYC]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

Yeah, even with its amazing historic density in the west and central, as well as the recovering south, the Bronx really imo remains untapped in its potential and I agree much can be improved with better integration with transit... The cluster of high rises built recently in Mott Haven could be replicated in many other areas... Shlocky low rise thoroughfares like Boston Road east of White Plains should be upzoned to encourage the apartment house vernacular of the west and south while side streets could remain the lower density homeowner SFH and 2/4 families. I could talk about the Bx all day.... Other boroughs...Brooklyn will continue to rejuvenate and densify... 3 million by 2050 is realistic... Queens the same.... Manhattan shouldn't be less than 2 million...the fact it is just feels wrong... UES, LES, Upper. Manhattan along with continued highrise development throughout the island are key to this... East Harlem and Mott Haven,Bx should be a major target for very ambitious housing implimentation...this of course really requires the MTA to be aggressive about getting the SAS into the Bronx as well. So much future NY growth potential is being held back by a timid, overburdened and underfunded MTA. This city should realistically have a few subway expansion projects going on at the same time... That's the kind if aggressiveness that is needed and seems to be shared by other international alpha cities.

Funny, the City/MTA has taken 90 years to build out the 3 stops of the 2nd Avenue Subway line.. It doesn't do anything bold anymore without extensive decade long delays and cost overruns that run in the billions.. I.E- Eastside Access.

Housing has to be a private-public endeavor.. developers want 421 Abatements.. bring it back and add much more affordable housing to the equation.

As for Queens, there is the Sunnyside Yards waiting to be developed, it's a massive 180 acres.. Hudson Yards for a comparison only 28 acres.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by JMKeynes

Right. However, considering that the typical Manhattan site is pretty small, removing FAR caps should yield taller towers.

Again, not neccessarily. FAR caps don’t take into account such things as ceiling height, or zoning regulations such as setbacks. If we’re talking a major jump in FAR, say doubling for example, I would pretty much say that you’re talking about a taller building. But Manhattan itself is only a small part of New York state, and the cap would be lifted statewide.

Particularly for this site, any increase in residential FAR should be closer to tge site max. Just increasing the FAR a few points doesn’t really change the current situation.

[Sky88]

And now what are the prospects for the Affirmation Tower project?

[Zapatan]

Good for Hochul

Originally Posted by Sky88

And now what are the prospects for the Affirmation Tower project?

I hope something better arises. I didn't hate AT but the cantilevers and massing turned me off a bit. (Not to mention the identity politics).

Could we still see something 500+ meters here?

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Zapatan

I hope something better arises. I didn't hate AT but the cantilevers and massing turned me off a bit. (Not to mention the identity politics).

Well, we don’t care about your politics, so keep it to yourself, thank you.

The same team behind the Affirmation Tower will bid again, as presumably will the other bidders. The Peebles proposal was said to be $300 million more than any of the others, but we’ll see if any changes changes the game.

[NYguy]

Looks like they decided to get a jump on the competition at 30 Hudson…


https://nypost.com/2023/01/06/highes...-hudson-yards/

Highest ice skating rink in NYC to open in Hudson Yards this month


By Hannah Frishberg
January 6, 2023

For a limited time, New Yorkers can soon glide above it all.

The loftiest winter blading spot in town is slated to open more than 1,100 feet above ground this coming week.

It will all be happening over at Manhattan’s Hudson Yards development, where — yes — the highest skating rink in New York City will allow patrons to drift over a 1,024-square-foot rink from Jan. 10 to March 14.

Instead of ice, however, visitors will be skating on “glice” — a synthetic material that’s said to feel just like the real thing. The “zero-energy ecological and synthetic ice rink” Sky Skate venue will be located in the indoor section of the Edge observation deck, which extends just under 80 feet out from the 100th floor of 30 Hudson Yards. The observation deck is the highest in the Western Hemisphere — and is perhaps best known for its glass floor portion, which looks down to the city streets far below.

Tickets — which include admission to Edge and skate rentals — grant rink access for 30-minute intervals between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. seven days a week and can be purchased online. Prices start at $48 per adult and go up to $73 for a premium admission pass, which includes a glass of champagne and a personalized photo book — and $88 for an express admission allowing guests priority elevator access and the ability to visit at any time on the day of their choosing. Slightly discounted tickets are available for seniors and children over 5; children 5 and under are free.

After their time slot, guests are invited to enjoy the views from Edge’s outdoor viewing area, which has views extending to Connecticut, Pennsylvania, the Atlantic Ocean and everything in between. Those who do not get vertigo from the experience may consider also buying tickets to the building’s City Climb offering, in which patrons pay to scale the outside of the building.

https://nypost.com/wp-content/upload...y=25&strip=all



https://nypost.com/wp-content/upload...y=25&strip=all

[NYguy]

Not sure what the holdup is with Hochul, but it’s been over a year since the RFP was pulled. Regardless of whatever she or anyone else hopes to see on the site, none of it happens without the RFP. Meanwhile, the properties just sit vacant.



https://www.theguardian.com/business...te-development

David Christopher Kaufman
Thu 23 Feb 2023

….. African Americans’ historic lack of capital has implications at every level of the Black real estate community. According to Peebles, the Affirmation Tower, which will cost $3.5bn (£2.9bn) to build, came to market with ample prefunding to get the project completed – an immense achievement for a developer of any race for a project of this scale. But with adequate access to capital far more the exception than the rule for Black developers, securing early-stage financing for even the most modestly sized Black-led projects can feel equally monumental.

….. In New York, Peebles’s Affirmation Tower has spent the past year in regulatory limbo after Governor Kathy Hochul’s decision last year to reconsider the site’s long-term fate. Initially, under then governor Andrew Cuomo, calls were put out to develop the site with the type of commercial and hotel tenants Peebles planned for Affirmation Tower. But after Cuomo’s resignation in mid-2021, his successor faced pressure from activists to introduce affordable housing into the tower’s design, which was not part of the original plan for the project. Peebles, who has built thousands of affordable units throughout his career, finds this snag irksome for a commercial tower that was never intended to include housing of any type.

Peebles remains in a holding pattern, waiting for Hochul to restart the bidding process for the Affirmation Tower’s proposed sites. In the meantime, Peebles insists that the project would not just salute the Black design and development talent behind it – it would also provide a permanent home for the New York headquarters of the NAACP, a national civil rights museum and myriad offices for major Black businesses. “This is the type of economic inclusion the state should truly be encouraging,” he says.

[NYguy]

Just posting for the bit at the end…


• Video Link

[NYguy]

They'll be having a meeting next week (wednesday), hopefully to discuss the RFP since the rest of the Convention Center business has been completed. It makes no sense that this has dragged on for so long. Either include mandatory affordable housing, or don't. Either way, the state is missing out on development of these parcels. And for what?

[NYguy]

This was put on hold at the end of 2021, after Hochul decided that she would listen to the "community" about their concerns for the site. I could have told her what they wanted, and saved us all a lot of time: NO tall buildings, and all-affordable housing. Haven't heard or seen anything about that since, and it makes no sense that these sites sit idle. They need to get it together, and issue the RFP for both sites!

Meanwhile, they slowly move to get some progress on attempting to make progress....

[NYguy]

I wonder if this is being held up by Hochul's full housing agenda. The state cap on residential FAR is 12, which would only account for half the buildable space on this lot. Hochul wants to raise that, but it remains to be seen if that will happen.



• Video Link

[NYguy]

MARCH 26, 2023


If tumbleweeds could blow in New York, it would be on this site…

[NYguy]

We don't know that the governor's push to increase the FAR limit on residential development will be approved, but some are already freaking out about it. They don't understand how zoning works.



https://www.villagepreservation.org/...-soon-act-now/

Decision on Allowing Supersized Development in NYC Expected Soon — ACT NOW!






The 1,550-ft-tall Central Park Tower, the tallest residential building in the world; Brooklyn’s 766-unit “The Hub”; Queens’ 974-unit “The Hayden”; West 42nd Street’s 1,175-unit “Sky”; and West 42nd Street’s 1,359-unit “Silver Towers.” All were built under existing restrictions proposed to be lifted for being “too restrictive,” so even larger buildings can go up.

Do you think new residential high-rises in NYC are too small or too short?

Do you think more residential neighborhoods in NYC should have supertall and mega-dense new residential development, far exceeding what current rules allow?

Do you think rules should be changed to allow bigger luxury high-rises without any requirements for affordable housing?

Do you think building massive amounts of new luxury housing will benefit all New Yorkers and make the city more affordable?

If you do, then you no doubt support the Governor’s proposal to lift the residential density cap for NYC, allowing even larger developments than currently permitted, letting the city zone to allow them in neighborhoods where they’re currently restricted, and not requiring any affordable housing in return.

That proposal is supported by some pretty powerful people in the real estate industry who’ve been salivating over the possibility (which we’ve helped stop before) for years. In addition to the Governor, it’s supported by the Mayor, the City Council Speaker, and Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine.

Last week, we joined local Assemblymembers Deborah Glick and Grace Lee, State Senator Liz Krueger, and City Councilmember Chris Marte in opposing it.

The proposal is built on false promises and misinformation. In mid-March we were able to help get both houses of the State Legislature to reject this plan in their one-house budget bills. But the proponents of the plan are pushing hard down to the wire to get it included, and anything is possible until the final State budget plan is approved (scheduled for April 1, but likely later).

We’ve beaten this developer-giveaway plan back before, and we can AND MUST do it again!

https://www.amny.com/oped/scrap-the-...g-development/

Op-ed | It’s time to scrap the 60’s-era rules holding back NYC housing development


By C. Virginia Fields
March 30, 2023

Last week, I saw a tweet from a Brooklyn City Council member documenting his trouble finding an apartment to rent in his district. He looked at 20 places, applied for five and got zero. He said that aging out of his parents’ house shouldn’t mean aging out of his community. This young man happens to come from Bed-Stuy but in a couple of simple but power tweets, he summed up the challenges facing every community in our city as the housing and affordability crisis squeezes us all more every day.

So far, our State legislators aren’t exactly answering the call.......The State Senate in its one house budget embraced the conversion of commercial buildings for residential units where the City determines it makes sense. The Senate also embraced Governor Kathy Hochul’s plans to provide tax incentives for those conversions that opt to build affordable housing. The Assembly unfortunately was silent on both issues, but many members have spoken in favor of these ideas and there is reason to believe the Assembly will step up on these issues in the final budget. We hope.

But both sides are shying away from the most meaningful part of Governor Hochul and Mayor Adams plans to build new housing: lifting the 1960s-era rules that limit the size of residential buildings. The so-called Floor Area Ratio (FAR) cap, which curtails the height of residential building, places an outdated limit on the amount of housing we can build in the city. Yes, there are massive buildings for the uber-rich, but that’s because the convoluted process they need to go through to build those buildings makes it too expensive to build affordable or even at-market rate rental buildings.

That doesn’t mean we are asking the State Legislature to impose taller building all over the City. It doesn’t mean we are asking the State Legislature to override City zoning. That is not what would happen if the Legislature lifted the FAR cap. Instead, it would trigger a process controlled by the City, informed by Community Board and other stakeholders, to decide where to allow taller residential building. It would empower the City to chart its future without outdated restraints imposed by Albany.

I have been through enough rezonings to know that community voices are powerful in this process. Local voices matter, local City Council members’ matter. Lifting the FAR doesn’t guarantee anything more than a process to allow the key stakeholders in the City to decide together where to build taller. In addition, any rezoning would trigger a requirement for affordable housing through the mandatory inclusionary housing program (MIH). That’s how we get more housing and more affordable housing.

The FAR cap dates back to the days when JFK was president, when the Empire State Building was our tallest building and eggs were 57 cents a dozen. That’s a long time ago, and it’s long overdue for Albany to give New York City back the ability to control its future. The new reality today is far different from those days, and the pressure on Black and Brown families in communities like Bed-Stuy is especially acute. It’s time to scrap the FAR cap and allow the City and its stakeholders to decide where, if anywhere, to build taller residential buildings.

The alternative is as clear as the City Council Member’s tweets: More young people priced out of the City, forced to raise their families elsewhere because they cannot afford to live in their own neighborhoods. As a long-time New Yorker who has dedicated much of her life to building a better, more equitable City, that is not a future I want to embrace. We can do better. It starts with Albany giving the City the power to do better. The housing and affordability crisis will not solve itself. Albany, it’s time to act.

[UrbanImpact]

Agreed, Manhattan should be a no brainer for housing density increases, especially if it gives developers incentive to set aside affordable units. Every unaffordable city needs this in their urban parts at the moment.

[chris08876]

They need to unleash the true potential.

[NYguy]

Don't know if this will be affected...


https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/06/a...llegation.html

Studio Museum in Harlem and Other Clients Cut Ties to David Adjaye


By Robin Pogrebin and Alex Marshall
July 6, 2023

The Studio Museum in Harlem announced Thursday that it had taken the significant step of parting ways with David Adjaye, the charismatic Ghanaian British architect who is building its new home in Manhattan. A library project in Portland, Ore., is moving forward without him. A sculpture park in Lincoln, Mass., canceled a show of his work planned for fall. And other cultural institutions from Princeton, N.J., to Liverpool, England, expressed serious concerns in response to the allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct against Mr. Adjaye that surfaced this week.

Mr. Adjaye himself in a statement said that he was stepping away from completion of the Studio Museum project “with the heaviest heart,” adding that “the prospect of the accusations against me tarnishing the museum and creating a distraction is too much to bear.”

Mr. Adjaye, who has offices in London, New York and Accra, Ghana, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 2017, has relinquished a number of roles in the wake of the allegations. These include being an architectural adviser to the mayor of London, and being part of the team working on a British Holocaust memorial next to the Palace of Westminster. Mr. Adjaye said in his statement that he did not want the allegations to “become a distraction” to those projects. He has also agreed to step away from a major Chicago housing project, The Chicago Sun-Times reported Thursday.

.....Bedrock, a Detroit-based developer that hired Adjaye Associates for a major Cleveland waterfront revitalization, said Thursday that “in light of” the serious allegations, “we are evaluating the business associations as we continue to move the project forward.”

[NewYorkCity76]

Per TheBigApple on Yimby Forums:

"New RFP for site K was released on Monday July 10th..."

https://esd.ny.gov/sites/default/fil...FP-Final_0.pdf

[NYguy]

^ As expected, Governor Hochul has made "affordable housing" a requirement for the site, and has eliminated any office use on site. That means that because only half of the development can be residential, the other component would most likely be hotel.

Some basic points:



























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[NYguy]

https://therealdeal.com/new-york/202...on-yards-site/

State issues request for apartments, not offices, at Hudson Yards site
New RFP for “site K” requires housing


By Kathryn Brenzel
July 19, 2023

State officials quietly rebooted efforts to develop a vacant site near the Javits Convention Center with new lines drawn in the sand: The project must have housing and cannot include office space.

Without fanfare, Empire State Development last week reissued a request for proposals for “site K,” a vacant, state-owned parcel at 418 11th Avenue. The RFP calls for a residential/mixed-use project that must include a housing component with 30 percent of the units affordable for individuals making an average of 80 percent of the area median income.

The Cuomo administration had issued an RFP for the site in March 2021 allowing for a commercial or mixed-use development. But in December of that year, state officials rescinded the request, citing the “changed economic environment” and Gov. Kathy Hochul’s commitment to building affordable housing.

At the time, the site had eager suitors lined up. The most publicized was a team led by developer Don Peebles, who envisioned a 2 million-square-foot project dubbed “Affirmation Tower.”

The RFP indicates that developers can “assume a residential tax exemption that mirrors the terms” of the expired tax break 421a. This may be a selling point for developers otherwise unwilling to begin new multifamily development without the generous property tax abatement.

On Tuesday, Hochul announced a similar arrangement in Gowanus for multifamily projects that met an initial 421a deadline of June 15, 2022, but are in danger of missing the construction completion deadline three years from now.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by NYguy

The time is fast approaching for bids to be in. The list of interested parties (people who did the site tour) is in. Don Peebles of course remains interested. It will be interesting to see what type of proposal if any he presents after Affirmation Tower. We never did get to see what any of the other proposals looked like. The response to questions has also been released, but there were nearly 100, haven't had a chance to read it.