A rendering of the proposed High Line in New Jersey

A legal settlement that would hand control of an elevated railway known as the Sixth Street Embankment in New Jersey from a Manhattan developer to Jersey City authorities could allow for the construction of the state’s own High Line Park, the Wall Street Journal reported.

While New Jersey officials have long pushed to have the mile-long structure transformed into a landscaped park, the patch of railway has been caught up in a lengthy legal battle spawning from the sale of the prospective park to Manhattan investor Steve Hyman, the Journal said, who wished to build housing at the site. Hyman purchased the embankment from Consolidated Rail for $3 million in 2003; Jersey City then sued Consolidated for selling the land and Hyman sued the city for throwing a wrench in his plans. [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]

The Rockaway Beach Branch LIRR tracks and the High Line

Queens residents have renewed efforts to turn old Rockaway Beach Branch Long Island Rail Road tracks into an outer borough version of the High Line, the New York Daily News reported.

The tracks, which run above street level for 3.5 miles from Rego Park to Ozone Park, have been out of service for nearly 50 years, and have already become overrun with trees and vegetation.

“It’s green, yet it has economic development opportunities,” said Andrea Crawford, chairwoman of Community Board 9, who met with city officials to discuss preliminary plans for the transformation. [more]

From left: Culture Shed model and a rendering of the Whitney Museum in the Meatpacking District

If the city has its way, New Yorkers will be able to walk along the High Line from the Whitney Museum, take a few stops at Chelsea galleries, and continue to a Hudson Yards arts center called the Culture Shed.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the arts center, which Mayor Michael Bloomberg said this week would host Fashion Week, would be home to theater performances, traveling exhibitions and community events. The city hopes to have a clear plan for the center by next summer, including funding and a non-profit organization to lead it. [more]

Developer Ziel Feldman’s HFZ Capital Group signed a contract to buy three adjacent parcels in Chelsea where it plans to build an approximately 100,000-square-foot, mixed-use building rising on both sides of the elevated High Line park, Feldman told The Real Deal.

The two-towered project will have about 90,000 square feet of residential space — condominiums with the possibility of some rentals as well — rising both east and west of the tracks, and at least 10,000 square feet of retail that will pass under the High Line with frontage on 10th Avenue.

“It is one of the better sites in the city as it straddles both Chelsea and the Meatpacking District,” Feldman, the company’s chairman, said. “Both communities have become residential where demand has been soaring.” [more]

The Delancey Street terminal and renderings of Delancey Underground

Like the hugely successful High Line, a group of entrepreneurs wants to transform out-of-use transit infrastructure into an urban green space, according to New York magazine. Unlike the High Line, the project is completely underground.Dan Barasch, an executive at social innovation network PopTech, James
Ramsey, founder of architecture firm Raad Studio, and money manager R.
Boykin Curry IV, want city approval to convert two acres of Metropolitan
Transportation Authority-owned space under Delancey Street that served
as a trolley terminal 60 years ago into a park (note: clarification appended). They call it Delancey
Underground. 

[more]

The owner of a third-generation auto-body business on West 29th Street between 10th and 11th avenues in Chelsea is being forced out of his premises to facilitate hipper tenants, more suitable for the home by the High Line, the New York Post reported.

Alan Brownfeld, whose grandfather started the family business in 1920, said his landlord won’t allow him to extend his lease.

“He’s terminating me and trying to get me to vacate my premises,” Brownfeld said. “They want to replace us with an art gallery or a high-rise… I’ve been here my whole life.”

The building housing Alan Brownfeld Garage was rezoned for residential and mixed use in 2005, the Post said. The auto-body shop was grandfathered in, so if the landlord wanted, Brownfeld could stay.
[more]

From the August issue:

Click the image for more

Compiled by Russell Steinberg [more]

From left: 552 West 24th Street (credit: PropertyShark) and a rendering of the previously planned condominium at the site

A 5,000-square-foot lot adjacent to the High Line in Chelsea drew no bids during a foreclosure auction Wednesday, Crain’s reported.

The parcel at 552 West 24th Street was slated to become a 12-story, 10-unit glass condominium with art gallery space, according to previous reports, but the owners, a Bayside, Queens-based entity called 552 West 24th St. LLC defaulted on its $9.5 million loan. The owners, who public records show have had a stake in the building since at least 1993, had previously filed for bankruptcy protection, but a judge dismissed the motion and gave lender Paradigm Credit the ability to foreclose on the property. [more]

When the second installment of the High Line opened last month, the word “voyeuristic” popped up more than a few times in reviews describing the park’s coexistence with its architectural surroundings. Well, it turns out that those neighboring buildings New Yorkers have been gawking at from the elevated pathway for the past two months actually have residents, and not all of them wanted to live in a metaphoric fishbowl. “People take pictures and wave at you when you’re alone in your home. We have to keep dark shades up all the time,” Ronni McFadden, who lives eye-level with the High Line at West 23rd Street and 10th Avenue, told the Post. “There’s zero privacy.” According to Carlos Santiago, “it’s a great view, but we can’t enjoy it because we have to keep the shades down at all times, and one of the best things about the apartment was the light.” [more]