From the October issue:

Click the image for more

Compiled by Russell Steinberg [more]

Public and private institutional investment in New York City remained strong even in the recession with new construction starts worth $11.4 billion from June 2008 to May 2011, according to a report released today by the American Building Congress. Even though the value of new construction starts fell $3.2 billion between June 2010 and May 2011, the report notes that that figure did not include several large projects that had not officially been recorded as of May 31. Those include the $680 million Whitney Museum project near the High Line and Fordham University $250 million multi-use facility near Lincoln Center.
– Miranda Neubauer [more]

New York City has issued an official request for proposals relating to Applied Sciences NYC, its initiative to build or expand a state-of-the-art engineering and applied sciences campus at one of three city sites, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Deputy Mayor Robert Steel and New York City Economic Development Corporation President Seth Pinsky announced today.

“Our offer is straightforward,” Bloomberg said of the proposal, initially unveiled in December. “We will provide prime New York real estate — at virtually no cost, plus up to $100 million in infrastructure upgrades, in exchange for a university’s commitment to build or expand a world-class science and engineering campus here in our city.”

The city is offering real estate at three possible locations, he said — Governors Island, Brooklyn Navy Yard, and Roosevelt Island. – Katherine Clarke [more]

Columbia University has scaled back plans for a new public school that it had promised to build as part of its new Manhattanville campus, inciting the ire of a community already on edge about the invasion of the university’s construction crews. According to the Daily News, Teachers College Elementary had been slated to open in the fall as a pre-kindergarten-through-eighth grade school, but Columbia officials said last week that they have not been able to find a large enough space to house it, and will consequently only be able to accommodate kindergarten through fifth grade. What’s more, the first year of the school’s existence will be tried out across town in East Harlem, rather than the neighborhood it was actually intended to serve. [more]

A rendering of Columbia’s proposed Steven Holl-designed athletic facility at Baker Field

The City Council voted yesterday to approve Columbia University’s Baker Field waterfront development project in Inwood, clearing the way for the school to build a new 47,700-square-foot, Steven Holl-designed athletic facility under modified zoning rules, DNAinfo reported. The debate leading up to the vote had centered upon Columbia’s request for a zoning variance at the 218th Street and Broadway site. In order to build a facility of that size, the city would normally have required 15 percent of the waterfront land to be exchanged for public use. Columbia will now be allowed to give up just 1.5 percent of the property for that purpose. [DNAinfo]
Comments

• Tweet

The city’s opening offer for as much as $100 million in real estate to an academic institution that develops a new graduate engineering school campus has drawn 18 proposals in its first, invitation round, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced today. The city said in December that it would contribute both capital and properties, like the former hospital sites at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and Roosevelt Island, to a “top caliber” institution in order to attract more technology companies to the city. Among the array of international institutions that expressed interest in the project: Cornell University, Columbia University together with the City University of New York, the Cooper Union, Stanford University, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. TRD [more]

President Barack Obama (top right) and images from his former apartment at 142 West 109th Street

President Barack Obama may call the White House his home this President’s Day, but during his Columbia University years, a two-bedroom in Morningside Heights was his abode of choice, according to the New York Daily News, which took a look inside the apartment, in honor of the holiday. The apartment, unit 3E at 142 West 109th Street, has seen extensive renovations since Obama lived there three decades ago. The $1,900-a-month apartment between Columbus and Amsterdam avenues was leased up last August. [NYDN] [more]

A rendering of Columbia’s proposed Steven Holl-designed athletic facility at Baker Field

Columbia University got the OK from the Department of City Planning yesterday on a zoning variance that will allow it to build a new, Steven Holl-designed athletic facility at its waterfront Baker Field sports complex in Inwood, according to DNAinfo. Normally, property owners would have to exchange 15 percent of their land for public waterfront access to build, but the plan approved yesterday allows Columbia to give up only 1.5 percent for that use. Columbia sought an exception to the rule because it said it doesn’t currently own enough waterfront land at the Broadway and 218th Street site to meet the city’s requirement, and instead wants to develop some of the city’s adjacent waterfront land as an addition to Inwood Hill Park. [more]

The city’s School Construction Authority appears likely to emerge as one of the biggest real estate winners of the recession, having taken advantage of the lower costs of construction and the large supply of stalled private sector projects to build a record 26 new public school facilities this year. According to the New York Times, the authority is in its second year of an $11.7 billion five-year capital plan and that has catapulted it to the forefront of the construction industry. “All of a sudden, marquee construction firms that would only do projects that were $15 million and above are bidding for SCA jobs,” said Louis Coletti, who heads the Building Trades Employers’ Association. Comments

• Tweet

Columbia University can move forward with plans for a $6.3 billion expansion after the U.S. Supreme Court today rejected an appeal by local businesses whose properties may be subject to eminent domain, Crain’s reported. The justices refused to question findings by a state development agency, Empire State Development Corp., saying that the area is blighted and that the expansion has a legitimate public purpose. The 17-acre site in Manhattanville would add more than 6.8 million square feet to the university. [more]