From left: Shake Shack, Blue Smoke and Battery Place Market
Long chided for being too clean, too green and too removed from the city’s buzz, Battery Park City is beginning to establish itself among mature Manhattan neighborhoods. According to the New York Post, it’s starting with a restaurant boom.
Restaurateur Danny Meyer has opened three eateries in the area, including a Shake Shack at 215 Murray Street, a Blue Smoke at 255 Vesey Street and North End Grill at 104 North End Avenue. [more]
Battery Park City Authority CEO Gayle Horwitz and a rendering of ball fields on the community spaceAfter 43 years as the lead developer of Battery Park City, the Battery Park City authority is nearing completion of its last projects on the neighborhood built on landfill from the excavation of the original World Trade Center site.
The Wall Street Journal reported that a $50 million community center and sports facility will open in February, and later in 2012, the redevelopment of Pier A will be complete.
“We are closing one chapter as real-estate developer and opening a new chapter as a building manager,” said Gayle Horwitz, chief executive of the authority. [more]
Even though Hurricane Irene mostly passed over New York without too much damage, there is still lingering concern about what the impact of a larger storm could be on the larger number of developments rising on the New York waterfront, the New York Times reported, as for many the hurricane was the first time many realized they lived in evacuation zone A.
To limit damage from storm surges and flooding, the city’s comprehensive waterfront development plan, “Vision 2020,” recommends the installation of retractable water-tight gates at the entryways of buildings; investing in the maintenance of seawalls and bulkheads; creating “soft edges” along the shoreline that can accommodate surging tides; and restoring or creating wetlands and barrier islands. According to “Vision 2020,” sea levels by 2050 could be 12 to 29 inches higher than they are today. By 2080, they could be some 55 inches higher. [more]
To look out the windows from the 10th floor of Larry Silverstein’s shiny new 7 World Trade Center is to take visual stock of how far Lower Manhattan has come since Sept. 11, 2001. There’s the already-skyscraping 1 World Trade Center to the right, Towers 3 and 4 rising to the left, the soon-to-open memorial plaza below, and the new W Downtown staring back from across the construction site. A few blocks to both the east and west, Lower Manhattan now houses more residents than it has ever before seen, and still more are moving in — in droves. And soon, of course, Condé Nast will arrive, and with it, as is presumed to be the case, so will the neighborhood.
So this morning, when some of the most important architects of this turnaround convened to celebrate “The New Downtown,” alongside the NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate and Silverstein Properties, there was a natural, and deserved, optimism in their voices (see photos above). But there was also an unmistakable air of exasperation, as if to say, what else can we possibly do to get major retailers and restaurateurs to take notice? [more]
An agreement struck today could prove crucial in ensuring existing Battery Park City residents can continue to afford their homes. According to Crain’s, the Battery Park City Authority, the public agency that manages the neighborhood, voted to pass a two-month old proposal to cut monthly ground rents for condominium owners in 11 buildings by $279 million over the next 30 years. Established in the mid-1980s, ground rents force owners to pay rent on the ground upon which their building stands and costs were scheduled to more than double over the next few years, and total $804 million through 2042. [more]
A planned 63 percent spike in ground rents in Battery Park City has been averted, according to Crain’s, after New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver helped broker a deal to reduce that increase. Ground rents, which are paid by residents to the Battery Park City Authority, vary among the 2,400 condominium unit owners in Battery Park City’s 11 buildings. The tentative agreement, reached Wednesday, will raise ground rents by 33 percent next year and could save residents of the Lower Manhattan neighborhood $279 million over the next three decades. [more]
The offering plan for 1 Rector Park, a new condominium at 333 Rector Place in Battery Park City, has been declared effective by the attorney general’s office, Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group announced today. Residents will soon be able to close on their new homes, on the corner of South End Avenue and Rector Place, and move in this spring. Since relaunching sales in September 2010, 1 Rector Park already has over 30 percent of the units under contract.The building features a recently completed lobby designed by Rick Livingston of Period LLC, with crystal chandeliers, mahogany textured walls and custom sofas. TRD [more]
Embattled developer Yair Levy and his son-in-law Daniel Deutsch are facing a $20 million lawsuit from unit owners at the Rector Square condominium, alleging they failed to complete construction and pay common charges as well as illegally converted funds at the property, all before the building was foreclosed on by Anglo Irish Bank.
The suit, filed Dec. 13 in New York State Supreme Court, claims that residents of the 304-unit building, at 225 Rector Place, have been unable to refinance, sell or get approval for any financial transactions at the building due to Levy defaulting on nearly $165 million in loans at the building, which led to the 2009 foreclosure. [more]
A renovation is underway at the Battery Park City Regal Cinema in the Embassy Suites Hotel, owned by Goldman Sachs. The box office and entrance to the theater are being moved to the second story, and the newly vacant space will be absorbed back into the hotel, a Regal employee told the Broadsheet Daily. Embassy Suites is also being redesigned. The hotel is slated to close in early January for a gut renovation that will transform it into a Conrad Hilton. [more]
A state Supreme Court judge ruled today that Attorney General Andrew Cuomo can proceed in his civil suit against developer Yair Levy, who is facing banishment from future condominium unit sales after he allegedly misappropriated millions of dollars from the Rector Square reserve fund.
Cuomo sued Levy, alleging that the man formerly known as the “condo king” illegally withdrew $1.6 million in reserve funds at the 303-unit building in Battery Park City, and signed over checks to family, while using the money to pay credit card bills at Macy’s and Verizon Wireless.
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