Upper West Side of Manhattan

The controversial zoning change proposed for the Upper West Side has been widely denounced by the Columbus Avenue Business Improvement District, according to a new release received today. The zoning revision would limit the size of retail stores on Columbus Avenue, from 72nd to 87th streets.

The rezoning was proposed by the New York City Department of Planning in January in an attempt to stem what Upper West Side residents perceived as the growth of larger chain stores and banks in the neighborhood. It would also place limits on retail spaces on Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway, from West 72nd to West 110th streets. But Columbus Avenue has little need for protections, the BID said, as it lacks large development sites and is already protected by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. [more]

From left: David Schwimmer, the home that formerly stood at 331 East Sixth Street and photos of construction at the site (building credits: PropertyShark)

Former “Friends” star David Schwimmer skirted the Landmarks Preservation Commission and demolished an East Village townhouse he purchased just before it could be designated a landmark, the New York Post reported.

Schwimmer bought the five-story, circa-1852 townhouse at 331 East Sixth Street for $4.1 million in 2010. Twice in early 2011 the LPC sent him letters warning that the building could be landmarked by the end of 2012. [more]

From left: 16 Court Street, 75 Livingston Street and 191 Joralemon Street

Despite strong Real Estate Board of New York opposition, the City Council’s Subcommittee on Landmarks, Public Siting and Maritimes Uses voted today to uphold the Borough Hall Skyscraper Historic District proposed for Brooklyn, the New York Times reported.

The designation had been the source of controversy for more than a year, and especially after the Landmarks Preservation Commission first moved to protect the five-block, 21-building area along Court Street last September. [more]

From left: Steven Spinola, president of REBNY and 16 Court Street

The Real Estate Board of New York has pumped up its efforts to block the landmark designation of a swath of 21 commercial building in Downtown Brooklyn, Crain’s reported.

Last September the Landmarks Preservation Commission approved the landmarking, known as the Borough Hall Skyscraper Historic District; it includes 16 Court Street, 191 Joralemon Street and 75 Livingston Street.  [more]

From left: 315 East 10th Street and Ben Shaoul

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission approved a block-long historic district on East 10th Street at an emergency public hearing and vote today. The creation of the historic district follows developer Benjamin Shaoul’s Magnum Real Estate Group’s application in December to add a rooftop addition to a townhouse at 315 East 10th Street, which Magnum purchased late last year. The newly designated area extends from avenues A to B along the south side of 10th Street. [more]

Later this month the Landmarks Preservation Commission will hear the Stahl Organization’s “hardship application” case for razing a designated apartment building along York Avenue and replacing it with new residential development, DNAinfo reported.

In its application to the LPC, submitted in September, Stahl claims more than 100 of the 190 units in the building, at 429 East 64th Street, are vacant, and it would cost $2 million to get those apartments in shape for tenants. [more]

From left: the block of East 10th Street under consideration by the LPC and Magnum President Ben Shaoul

The Landmarks Preservation Committee’s meeting regarding the proposed designation of the East 10th Street Historic District in the East Village has been expedited, the New York Times reports.

The decision is being sped up in response to Magnum Real Estate Group’s application last week to add another floor to 315 East 10th Street, a building the firm recently purchased. Magnum is run by developer Ben Shaoul, and has purchased a number of buildings in the area recently. The building at 315 East 10th Street, on the northern border of Tompkins Square Park, would be taller than the other buildings on the park if approved, the Times said.
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New York-based real estate investment firm Rossrock Fund, owner of commercial mortgage loans, originating mezzanine loans and commercial real estate properties, is foreclosing on an Italian Renaissance-style building at 23 Park Place in the Financial District, according to data from PropertyShark.com. The building, which had at one time been considered for a controversial mosque, once served as the headquarters of the New York Daily News and will hit the auction block next month with a total mortgage lien of $7 million.

The five-story, 23,664-square-foot building, owned by Park Murray Associates LLC., made headlines last year after it was tapped as the site of a second mosque close to the World Trade Center.  [more]

From the November issue:  Back in the late 1970s, artists and like-minded bohemians who colonized the area in Brooklyn that lay in the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge thought they had hit on a bright idea: Apply the somewhat unlovely name of “Dumbo” to the area, and it would stand in such a bad odor that no one, least of all developers, would ever want to go there. According to this logic, the place would thus be safe for its down-at-the-heels inhabitants to continue living in large lofts without having to pay too much.

Of course, that strategy seems laughable today, now that Dumbo has become one of the city’s most vibrant areas for development, as new buildings, like the recently completed 109 Gold Street, designed by the Manhattan-based firm Kutnicki Bernstein Architects, have just gone on the market. [more]

Jared Kushner, a principal of the Kushner Companies, and the Puck BuildingThe Landmarks Preservation Commission again did not approve Kushner Companies’ proposal for a penthouse on top of the historic Puck Building at 295 Lafayette Street in Soho. The commission said it wanted further revisions to the scale and visibility of the rooftop addition to the 203,000-square-foot, mixed-use building between Houston and Jersey streets. The commission had previously rejected an even larger version of the proposal last month.

Though the LPC noted that it is open to an addition on the building, Chairman Robert Tierny said, “some rethinking is in order.” – Adam Fusfeld [more]