The New York City Economic Development Corporation has issued a Request for Proposals seeking to award up to $8 million from the City Council Small Manufacturing Investment Fund to subsidize capital improvement costs for the subdivision and modernization of existing underutilized industrial spaces, EDC announced today.

“The city’s industrial sector, which, like the industrial sector nationally, has faced serious challenges in recent decades, now offers real opportunities for growth and development,” said EDC President Seth Pinsky.

The RFP, announced as part of three broader initiatives designed to support and strengthen the city’s industrial sector, is anticipated to help create modernized space for small industrial businesses, including manufacturers. – Katherine Clarke [more]

The Bloomberg administration has withdrawn its controversial plans to permit developer Bruce Ratner to transform land in the Mill Basin part of Brooklyn into a shopping mall, A Walk in the Park blog reported, announcing the withdrawal on the Office of Environmental Coordination’s website.

“The Four Sparrow Marsh Retail Center at Mill Basin project has been withdrawn as of September 2011,” the announcement said.

Ratner had planned to transform 15 acres of Four Sparrow Marsh to into a shopping site. There was reportedly speculation that the project was stalled by an investigation into alleged corruption on the part of Senator Carl Kruger, who designated funds for the development (note: correction appended). [more]

Renderings of CREATE @ Harlem taking over the old Taystee Bakery complex

The city’s Economic Development Corporation selected three companies to redevelop two historic Harlem sites into more than 350,000 square feet of commercial and industrial space, Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office announced today. The larger of the two sites, the Taystee Bakery complex that comprises six buildings on 125th and 126th streets near Amsterdam Avenue, will be developed by Janus Partners and Manodnock Construction. The $100 million project, called CREATE @ Harlem, will create 328,000 square feet of manufacturing, office, retail and community space, and is expected to house locally-based businesses including the Harlem Brewing Company, HerFlan bakery, and the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center. The latter of the three tenants is a non-profit promoter of local manufacturers, and as per the company’s mission, will lease its space to small manufacturing and artisan companies.
– Adam Fusfeld Comments

The Economic Development Corporation unveiled plans yesterday for its redevelopment of the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area that included moving Essex Street Market out of its current location, on Essex near Rivington Street and into a new facility across the street on Delancey. According to DNAinfo, the new market would be nearly twice the size of the existing one and would have the capacity to hold 65 vendors — nearly three times the current roster. Of course, many community activists, including a group called Save the Essex Street Market and some of the market’s vendors are opposed to lifting the market from its historic home. “The Essex Street Market as it stands is living history,” said Anne Saxelby, who operates Saxelby Cheesemongers. [more]

The New York City Economic Development Corporation has begun accepting bids for the redevelopment of East Harlem’s Corn Exchange Building, a city landmark. The EDC said it’s aiming for a developer to either purchase or take out a ground lease on the building, which sits on 4,500 square feet and is zoned for residential or commercial use. The building, which sits on the corner of Park Avenue and 125th Street, was once six stories tall, but deteriorated due to decay and neglect. Early last year, the Department of Buildings ordered that the upper floors be removed due to safety concerns. TRD [more]

Admiral’s Row at the Brooklyn Navy Yard

The non-profit Brooklyn Navy Yard Development removed PA Associates as a designated developer on its high-profile Admiral’s Row project a day after one of the firm’s founders was charged in a $1 million federal bribery investigation.

The quasi-governmental entity today “terminated the designation of PA Admirals Row LLC as the developer of the Admiral’s Row site,” the corporation said in a statement to The Real Deal. PA Admirals Row LLC is an affiliate of Midtown-based PA Associates, which was approved as the developer to partner with grocery chain ShopRite on the $60 million project to build a grocery store.

Yesterday federal prosecutors charged Aaron Malinsky, a principal and founder of PA Associates, of funneling $472,500 in bribes to State Senator Carl Kruger. [more]

A pair of condominium towers planned along the Greenpoint waterfront is drawing fire from critics after the developer inked a deal with the city to build a pier at the end of Java Street in exchange for another 40,000 square feet of residential building rights. According to the Wall Street Journal, the city recently approved the $60,000 sale of a strip of underwater land for the pier to Stiles Properties, but local leaders are charging that the deal was done behind closed doors and will allow for out-of-scale development. Stiles is planning two of the tallest condo towers on the Brooklyn waterfront — one of which would be upwards of 40 stories — for an adjacent former industrial site between Java and India streets that it purchased in 2009. Comments

A metal fabricating company currently housed in Willets Point within the footprint of the city’s $3 billion mixed-use development project bought a $3 million parcel that is more than three times the size of its current location about a mile north in College Point.
Feinstein Iron Works, which produces structural steel, bought the approximately 118,000-square-foot parcel near the intersection of 31st Avenue and College Point Boulevard on Dec. 16 from the city’s Economic Development Corporation, property records published Tuesday show. At the same time, the city gave to the industrial firm a $3 million purchase money mortgage, city records show. [more]

The city is kicking off a search today for companies that would install 50,000 square feet worth of solar panels atop the Brooklyn Army Terminal’s main industrial building, according to the Post. The $10 million project would result in the largest solar-energy system in the city, partially powering the 97-acre office and industrial complex in Sunset Park and two smaller city-owned sites that haven’t been picked out yet. If it succeeds, the Bloomberg administration is looking to replicate the technology elsewhere, including at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. [more]

David Walentas

Dumbo development kingpins David and Jed Walentas are on track to restart their stalled, 73-room hotel project in Williamsburg if the city approves the designation of $15 million in federal stimulus funding towards the “shovel-ready” project today, according to the Brooklyn Paper. The boutique hotel, on Wythe Avenue and North 11th Street, would be borne of a renovation of a five-story former textile factory. In 2008, the city rejected the Walentases’ $3.6 million plan for the building, which would have doubled its height. But today, their Two Trees Management is among three developers awaiting a decision from the city about who will receive funding, and how much. It wouldn’t be the only new luxury hotel in the transforming Northside area of Williamsburg, once filled with factories and row houses, as another is slated to open next year. Two Trees says the project will create 75 construction jobs and 195 permanent jobs, though the city pegs the estimate as significantly lower. [Brooklyn Paper]

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