Gary Jacob, executive vice president of Glennwood Management and the Emerald Green

Developers are increasingly including affordable units within luxury
rental buildings as part of the 80/20 program, the New York Times reported.

Steven Spinola, the president of the Real Estate
Board of New York, says at least six 80/20 projects are being planned
in Manhattan that will add some 1,500 affordable and rent-stabilized
apartments.
Previously, when
developers of market-rate residential buildings included affordable
housing in exchange for tax incentives, the affordable units were
often in another complex or even in another borough altogether. But in
2008, the city changed regulations in a way that made it almost
impossible for developers to include the affordable units outside the
luxury buildings. [more]

New residential developments are slowly turning a stretch of Hell’s Kitchen from one of the largest patches of undeveloped land in Manhattan into a vibrant enclave, according to the Wall Street Journal.

In the last three years, MiMA, a rental and condo building by Related on 42nd Street and 10th Avenue, Emerald Green, a 569-unit development on West 38th Street between Eighth and Ninth avenues and 455W37 and 505W37, TF Cornerstone projects on West 37th Street near 10th Avenue, have all come to the neighborhood. Construction is underway on more projects, the Journal said, including a rental building by Glenwood Management at 330 West 39th Street. [more]

Hudson Yards gets one more luxury rental

Townsend

From the July issue:
The newly completed Townsend at 350 West 37th Street adds 206 more
luxury rentals to the couple thousand that have come to market recently
in Hudson Yards, a neighborhood no one had even heard of 10 years ago.
One street over, Emerald Green has 569 units, with similar finishes, in
the same price range. And further west, there are nearly 400 units at
455 West 37th Street, and 835 units at 505 West 37th (both by TF
Cornerstone). Plus, Douglaston Development recently delivered 288 units
at Ohm at 11th Avenue and 30th Street. But despite the stiff
competition, Cliff Finn, the managing director of new development at
Citi Habitats, which is marketing the building for the developer,
Lalezarian Properties, said leasing up the Townsend “shouldn’t take
more than six months.”

[more]

From the October issue: Back in 2006, when Glenwood Management began assembling parcels on the
eastern edge of the then newly rezoned Hudson Yards district to make
way for Emerald Green, it knew the project would have plenty of company
when it opened. Thousands of high-end apartments in several massive
rental projects were slated to hit the market in the emerging
neighborhood at the same time or soon after. What they didn’t anticipate was the mess of a market they’d be entering. The 24-story, two-tower building, located at 320 West 38th Street, has
just begun renting its 569 apartments, not long after the release of a
quarterly market survey declaring the past year a disaster for rentals. more

Douglas Durst, developer of the Helena, drives a Mini E

Developers are trying to pave the way for electric cars by installing
car-charging stations in apartment building parking garages. Glenwood
Management is installing four charging stations at Emerald Green, a
569-unit rental building on 38th Street between Eighth and Ninth
avenues, and may add more stations if they turn out to be popular. The
Helena, at 57th Street and 11th Avenue, already offers electrical
outlets in its parking garage. The building was developed by the Durst
Organization, whose chairman, Douglas Durst, has been leasing a Mini E,
an electric car made by BMW. Several other car manufacturers will be
debuting electric models in the next two years.  [NYT]

[more]