A construction site in Harlem and DOB Commissioner Robert LiMandri

If the city’s Department of Buildings has its way, curious New Yorkers will no longer need to sift through dozens of complicated permits to find out what’s transpiring at local construction sites. They’d only need to eye one sign.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the buildings department has launched a pilot program that encourages developers to put a single comprehensive sign on the plywood surrounding construction sites that details all the permits and includes a rendering of the project. [more]

From left: 17-19 Union Square West and 420 Lexington Avenue (building credits: PropertyShark)The company responsible for maintaining the elevator at 285 Madison Avenue that killed a Young & Rubicam ad executive earlier this month is facing several lawsuits from people injured by their elevators, the New York Post reported.

There are at least eight active cases against the company, Transel. One was filed by the building super at 17-19 Union Square West, who became permanently injured after falling down the elevator shaft when he stepped through open doors before the elevator had arrived. He alleges Transel bypassed the elevator’s parking device which would prevent such an accident. [more]

Clockwise from left: Carlyle Group CEO David Rubenstein, 508 West 24th Street and Cary TamarkinThe Carlyle Group purchased an industrial warehouse near the High Line for $16 million, according to public records filed with the city today, hoping to erect a 10-story residential building on the site. The deal closed Dec. 7.

A two-story, 14,440-square-foot warehouse currently stands on the property, at 508 West 24th Street between 10th and 11th avenues. It sits adjacent to the High Line park on a block with 14 art galleries. The seller is media production company MetroVision Production Group, which had owned the site since 1999, according to public records. [more]

A federal court dismissed a lawsuit this week that sought to undermine the New York City Department of Buildings’ power to regulate the crane industry, Crain’s reported.

The Steel Institute of New York sued the city agency and argued that the city’s crane laws should be governed by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which has its own set of rules for crane construction. While the DOB’s laws do not conflict with federal regulations, they do have added safety measures that were a response to the two construction accidents involving cranes in 2008. [more]

David Satnick, a partner at Loeb & Loeb, 316 West 95th Street and 330 West 95th Street

The owners of three Upper West Side single-room-occupancy buildings will pay $600,000 in civil penalties to settle claims they violated housing laws by renting out some of their roughly 600 units to short-term tenants and tourists. The agreement, approved by a New York state judge on Nov. 22, resolves a longstanding legal dispute with the city that spurred legislation last year clarifying that SRO units must be used for permanent residents only.

For almost a century, tourists and other temporary occupants have rented units at the properties — the Montroyal at 315 West 94th Street, the Pennington at 316 West 95th Street and the Continental at 330 West 95th Street, all between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive — and the owners have advertised the accommodations on travel websites, according to court records. [more]

From left: Department of Design and Construction Commissioner David Burney, Department of Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri and the single-occupancy housing style

Antiquated laws for housing types in the city are restricting development of the type of residencies needed most in the city, according to the Citizens Housing and Planning Council. The New York Times reported that last week, the council hosted an exposition where architects presented ideas for new types of housing for lower-income New Yorkers. Developers and city officials were on hand and critiqued the proposals. Many of the designs were based on the concept of single-room-occupancy hotel.

The current problem, according to the new housing advocates, is that even though most homes are designed with families in mind, just 17 percent of city housing units are occupied by parents raising children under the age of 25. [more]

The architects of the Brighton Beach condominium project that collapsed earlier this week killing one man, Bricolage Architecture and Design’s Douglas Pulaski and Henry Radusky, were previously forced by the Department of Buildings to surrender some privileges because of problems with other projects, the New York Daily News reported.

“They have been known by the buildings department for many years to operate on the fringe,” Assemblyman James Brennan told the News yesterday. The agency should have had them in its “line of sight” before the incident.

In 2005, Brennan demanded DOB take a closer look at all projects submitted by Bricolage. [more]

From left, 303 East 51st Street, Ziel Feldman, founder of HFZ Capital
Group, and City Council member Jessica Lappin

For three and a half years, the structure at 303 East 51st Street has remained a stunted
skeleton, halted at 18 stories after the infamous March 2008 crane collapse that killed
seven people and crushed an adjacent building.

But that may change soon.

Ziel Feldman, founder of HFZ Capital Group, which closed on the purchase of the site
early this year, said through a spokesperson that he would have “significant progress to
announce” later this week, and the firm plans to restart construction at the site, on 51st
Street between First and Second avenues, this spring.

The expeditor on the project, Laurence Gillman, an associate at Jerome S. Gillman
Consulting Architect, said that the Department of Buildings had completed its zoning
examination of the plan and was reviewing architectural and other drawings as part of a
building code review. [more]

Hotel Chelsea and renovations inside the buildingHotel Chelsea residents have been complaining about dangerous conditions ever since the Chetrit Group began renovations on the famed building, and photos taken by The Real Deal show conditions are not pristine. However, according to the New York Daily News, Department of Buildings inspectors found just one minor violation in their inspection of the landmark at 222 West 23rd Street — the removal of a partition wall not mentioned in the permit. [more]

From left: 515 East 5th Street in 2005, before the rooftop addition; 515 East 5th Street as it looks now and Benjamin ShaoulState Sen. Daniel Squadron and local City Council member Rosie Mendez joined tenants of an East Village townhouse owned and renovated by an LLC run by Benjamin Shaoul who have taken to the streets in protest of conditions within the building and Department of Buildings’ inaction towards an illegal rooftop addition, the East Village Local reported.

Shaoul purchased the building at 515 East 5th Street, between avenues A and B, for $2.8 million in late 2005 and quickly went to work to renovate the building. He added one and a half stories to the top of the structure, but that was deemed illegal by the Board of Standards and Appeals in November 2008. Residents worry the building is unsafe. [more]