Steven Schnall, founder of QuonticBank

Steven Schnall thinks that 1,000 community banks will close in the next year.

Even so, he’s confident the one he’s starting won’t.

Schnall, a mortgage finance expert who founded New York Mortgage Trust, has redesigned the erstwhile Golden First Bank in Great Neck under the name QuonticBank, with initial capitalization of $12 million to $13 million — half of which came out of his own pocket.

Despite his bleak community bank market outlook, Schnall said that smart lending will help his enterprise eschew failure. He said his background in mortgage financing was a key motivator in his decision to launch Quontic (“ontic” coming from the Greek word “ovtoc,” meaning factual existence, and “qu” being the prefix for the word “quality,” according to a Schnall spokesperson).

“The reason these banks are failing — in almost all cases — [is] bad loans,” Schnall said. “Our philosophy is, ‘we’re here to lend, but you have to be credit-worthy and you have to have skin in the game.’” [more]

September marked the opening of the public school system in New York City, which included 23 new school buildings with more than 13,000 seats. The new construction, along with 18 new school buildings opened last year, brought the most ever new school classroom seats online in a two-year period since the School Construction Authority was created in 1988. For the decade ending in 2012, the Department of Education is on track to construct more than 110,000 new school seats across the city, with more than 82,000 seats already completed — 28,323 in Queens, 19,394 in Brooklyn, 19,268 in the Bronx, 9,434 in Manhattan and 5,619 in Staten Island. [more]

Architect Charles Gwathmey, who founded Gwathmey Siegel & Associates with Robert Siegel, died yesterday in Manhattan. Gwathmey was 71 and died of esophageal cancer, his stepson, Eric Steel, said. Projects completed by his firm included the International Center of Photography in Midtown, the Northgate apartment complex on Roosevelt Island, the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Hoboken’s W Hotel and an addition to the Guggenheim Musuem. Gwathmey himself designed houses for a number of celebrities, such as Steven Spielberg and Jerry Seinfeld.

A proposal for a stretch of industrial waterfront in Astoria called
Halletts Point would bring seven mixed-use towers to the area, some as
tall as 32 stories. Developer Lincoln Equities submitted a land-use
review application to the Department of City Planning last week for the
project, which needs to go through the public review process. The
development would also include a supermarket, retail and restaurants,
amenities that residents say Halletts Point lacks, and it would create
new parks that connect to other nearby public spaces. Construction could
start in the fall of 2010. City Council member Peter Vallone Jr. said
the area is in need of development, and that he has already negotiated
with the developer to reduce the size of the planned towers. Vallone is
also pushing for a bank and school on the site. [more]

The proposed rezoning won’t allow out of character buildings (middle) in the area

The Department of City Planning and Council member Peter Vallone
are introducing a massive rezoning plan for the Astoria section of
Queens tonight at a public meeting, officials said. Vallone of Astoria and City Planning are hosting what they describe as a “town hall informational session” to discuss a
rezoning study that would limit development in residential sections of
the neighborhood while relaxing zoning in commercial areas. “More and more monstrosities have been overwhelming beautiful
residential neighborhoods,” Vallone said in a press release. “The
rezoning is an effort to prevent people from tearing down existing
buildings to construct new buildings that are out of character, while
allowing homeowners to improve and expand their property in context
with the area.” [more]

The number of home sales in the outer boroughs
are falling fast. Sales of one-, two-, and three-family homes in
Brooklyn fell 37.5 percent last year, according to the
Daily News, and in Queens, home sales fell 34.8 percent last year. The
Richmond Hill neighborhood in Queens saw home sales fall from 938 sales
to 665 in
2007. In Astoria, the average number of days a home sat on the market
doubled in the past year, reaching 120 days on the market. In Brooklyn, Nancy Pecoraro, a vice president at Fillmore Real Estate,
said she has been selling far fewer homes in Sheepshead Bay because
prices are down from a year ago, but many sellers are still unwilling to
lower prices. [more]

Home prices in Queens have tumbled more dramatically than those in other boroughs, according to a third-quarter market report released today by Prudential Douglas Elliman. Median sale prices for all home types in Queens declined 11.4 percent to $400,000 from $451,250 in the third quarter of 2007, according to the report, which was prepared by real estate appraisal firm Miller Samuel. Meanwhile, the average sale prices decreased 8.8 percent to $436,575 from $478,752 in the prior year quarter. [more]

From the March issue: Why is Pottery Barn moving to Brooklyn Heights
but not to Astoria?
Why does Park Slope have numerous Starbucks while there are none in nearby Fort Greene?
And why are store clerks in Williamsburg
suddenly asking to know your zip code? The one word answer is psychographics,
an art/science that uses the growing mountain of consumer data now available to
help retailers, and marketers in particular, make decisions about real estate. Analysts
use psychographic information to define consumer categories, which are often
given colorful names such as “Shotguns and Pickups” and “Blue
Blood Estates.” The results are used to decide where to locate stores,
restaurants, banks and even medical facilities.

[more]

Suburban shoppers with immigrant parents or grandparents are boosting the city’s economy by visiting ethnic retail centers at a growing rate, according to a report published by the Center for an Urban Future, a think tank. Downtown Flushing, Washington Heights, Richmond Hill, Brighton Beach, Midwood and Astoria are all popular ethnic centers. While the number of businesses citywide increased 9.6 percent from 1994 to 2004, the report highlighted several areas that grew faster: Flushing, up 54.6 percent; Sunset Park, up 47.3 percent; Sheepshead Bay-Brighton Beach, up 33.7 percent; and Washington Heights, up 17.8 percent. [more]

From the July issue: Soaring high above the Queensboro Bridge, the giant Silvercup Studios logo stands like a sentinel over the beige brick building where many iconic modern films were made. Amid half-empty warehouses and taxi parking garages, this slice of Long Island City is where the Devil put on Prada, Harry met Sally and the Godfather met his end. But the growth of the entertainment industry in the city is facing some tough realities, with space fetching a bigger premium than stardom. Demand is reaching record levels for shooting in the city, and Silvercup and New York’s two other major studios — Steiner Studios and Kaufman Astoria Studios — are planning to add about 979,000 more square feet of studio space to the city’s current 1.21 million square feet, bringing the total to 2.19 million square feet. more By Sushil Cheema