The much-maligned retail rezoning proposal on the Upper West Side has inspired community boards throughout the city to consider similar regulations for its streets. According to the New York Post, ideas for comparable restrictions — meant to curb the proliferation of banks, chain drug stores and other national retailers — are being kicked around the Upper East and Lower East sides. [more]

The School Construction Authority of New York City will reveal plans for the new pre-K through 8th grade school slated for the Riverside Center development on the Upper West Side tonight, DNAinfo reported. The four-story school, which will be the first new school to be built in the area in decades, will open in 2015.

Riverside Center is a five-tower apartment and retail complex between 60th and 61st streets along West End Avenue that was approved by the City Council late last year. The contentious approval process was lengthened by Upper West Side residents’ concerns that the school, P.S./I.S. 342, be large enough to accommodate the growing school-age population in the neighborhood. [more]

Michael and Alice Halkias and a rendering of the hotel (hotel image source: Curbed)

The husband-and-wife team who want to build an 11-story hotel and parking garage adjacent to their Grand Prospect Hall in South Slope have already sparked a neighborhood controversy with their plans, and now the chair of Community Board 7’s land use and landmarks committee is calling on them to appear at another public meeting to address the community’s concerns. In a letter obtained by Brownstoner, reproduced after the jump, CB 7’s John Burns told Grand Prospect owner Michael Halkias that his descriptions thus far of the height and depth of the project have been “vague” and that “some very basic question [sic] could not be answered.” [more]

From left: Christine Quinn, Gary Barnett and Riverside Center

The New York City Council voted unanimously today to approve Extell Development’s controversial Riverside Center, a planned mixed-use complex slated for a swath of land extending between West End Avenue and Riverside Boulevard and between 59th and 61st streets, according to a spokesperson for the developer, Gary Barnett. Riverside Center is expected to include 2,500 apartments, a 250-room hotel, 104,000 square feet of office space and a kindergarten-through-eighth grade school. TRD [more]

Extell’s Gary Barnett and a rendering of the Riverside Center

Community Board 7 voted 36 to 2 last night to disapprove Extell’s plans for an eight-acre Riverside Center project, unless the developer agrees to build according to some “modifications,” the Observer reported. The plan for the new development — to span 59th to 61st streets, and West End Avenue to the edge of the West Side Highway — includes five skyscrapers, at least 2,500 apartments, 210,000 square feet of retail, a hotel, a movie theater, an underground automobile service center, a new K-8 school and three acres of open space. The board is now seeking stronger commitments toward school spacing and affordable housing, plus a design that excludes an entire building from Extell’s plan. The community board’s decision is just the first step in a lengthy public review for the project. The mixed-use development is now working its way through the city’s rezoning process that began in May, and — after several local public hearings — it will now head to the City Planning Commission and the City Council for further scrutiny. [NYO]

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Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz wasn’t a fan of the Related Companies’ Kingsbridge Armory redevelopment plan, but that doesn’t mean he wants the massive structure to remain vacant. Yesterday, Diaz announced the creation of a new task force that will recommend a new use for the space and craft a request for proposals from developers. “A retail mall was not the best use for this space, given the traffic issues and its proximity to the Fordham Road shopping district. My critics have challenged me to come up with something better for the Kingsbridge Armory, and I am prepared to answer that call,” Diaz said in a statement, suggesting arts and recreation, green manufacturing, and a home for the film industry as possible alternative uses. Members of the task force include Marlene Cintron, president of the Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation, Paul Foster, chairman of Bronx Community Board 7, Ned Regan, former state comptroller and Kathryn Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City. [NYO]

Several local elected officials in Queens said they were left in the dark on a multimillion dollar medical center development scheduled to break ground in March on three plots of land at 42-31 Union Street in downtown Flushing, according to Yournabe.com. Marilyn Bitterman, district manager of Community Board 7, said that she and other area officials weren’t informed of developer Fleet Financial Group’s plans — either by city officials or the developer itself. “What a mess it’s going to be,” Bitterman said. “If it goes in as an as-of-right development, there’s nothing we can do.” The development, planned as a mixed-use hospital and apartment complex, has been granted $14 million in tax-exempt stimulus bonds, according to a representative from the Economic Development Corporation. State Senator Toby Stavisky said that while the Department of Buildings may have approved the plans, local officials should have been made aware of the upcoming project. “I know we have secrets, but I don’t think this proposal should be a secret,” Stavisky said.

Chabad of the Upper West Side has won approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission to build a day school, synagogue and community center inside two buildings at 43 and 45 West 86th Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West. The group will renovate the two landmarked rowhouses for its new facilities, forcing the renters who currently live in the buildings to move out. Community Board 7 had voted down Chabad’s plan, but recently the commission unanimously approved the project. Early projections estimate that the renovated space will be ready by 2013.