Vanderbilt Hall

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is looking for restaurants to fill two spaces in Grand Central Terminal that have never before been available and could generate $20 million in annual revenue, according to Crain’s. One space is 12,000 square feet on the west end of Vanderbilt Hall, centered around a 2,100-square-foot space that used to be a hair salon. The restaurant would put seats in the hall itself and could extend as far back as the Times Square Shuttle passage for a takeout shop. The other space is a 5,000-square-foot balcony that is currently used for storage above the food market. [more]

Miramar and C condos in Elmhurst

New construction is gaining ground in Elmhurst, leading to a revival of the Queens neighborhood that has civic leaders calling for expanded Metropolitan Transportation Authority service to the area, the Wall Street Journal reported. Two new condominium buildings, the Miramar and C Condo, have opened in recent years with an eye on luring Manhattanites to under-the-radar Queens enclave. In the next few weeks Pi Capital will bring a mixed-use development on Broadway and Queens Boulevard with 83 apartments and several retail spaces to the market. [more]

Second Avenue Subway construction

Rather than take Upper East Siders’ word, Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials want to experience sleepless nights along Second Avenue for themselves. According to the New York Post, transit officials plan to make late-night visits to apartments near the Second Avenue Subway construction site that has elicited constant noise complaints from neighbors. [more]

Yorkshire Towers at 305 East 86th StreetResidents of the Yorkshire Towers who filed a federal lawsuit earlier this year against a variety of federal agencies as well as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority saying the MTA had “arbitrarily and capriciously” chosen to place new subway entrances on their blocks and failed to properly assess the environmental impact of the mid-block entrances, are out of luck, Second Avenue Sagas blog reported.

A judge earlier this month granted a motion to dismiss the complaint by the residents of the building, at 305 East 86th Street at Second Avenue, based on a legal technicality (see the decision below). The residents waited eight months beyond the statute of limitations, and therefore the station entrances will go ahead as planned. That suit wasn’t the first one Yorkshire Towers filed against the MTA.

In a related case last year they sued the MTA over a Freedom of Information Law request.

The MTA has faced other criticisms as it continues in the first phase of the four-phase project. Residents near the construction complained at a community board meeting a couple of months ago that the work is causing them health problems. [Second Avenue Sagas] and [Second Avenue Sagas]
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The Grand Central Apple store (credit: Architect’s Newspaper)

The press has been let into the much-discussed Apple store at Grand Central Terminal, set to open Friday, according to USA Today. The tech giant is paying $60 per square foot for the 23,000-square-foot store, one of its largest, and will make shopping as simple as possible for rushed commuters, allowing them to purchase the company’s products without the help of a sales assistant. They can simply slide an iPhone across a product’s bar code and grab the item. The receipt is delivered to them via email. While State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli previously blasted station-owner, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for the deal with Apple, the MTA is continuing to defend the transaction and the intrinsic value of having the company in the building. [USA Today] [more]

From left: State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli and renderings of the Apple store in Grand CentralThe sweetheart deal that Apple got to open a store in Grand Central Terminal has caught the attention of State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, according to the New York Post, and he’s launched an investigation into whether the Metropolitan Transportation Authority was overly generous with the lease terms.

Apple is paying less rent than most other tenants, including neighbors on the balcony, and is the only of the 100 retailers in the terminal that doesn’t have to share its revenue with the agency. [more]

Rendering of Grand Central Apple Store

The cash-strapped Metropolitan Transportation Authority presented Apple with an unusually favorable deal to take 23,000 square feet of space in the Grand Central Terminal, according to the New York Post.

Not only is Apple paying just $60-per-square-foot, while other tenants, such as Shake Shack, pay upwards of $200 per square foot, but Apple is also under no obligation to kickback a percentage of its sales to the MTA, as all other Grand Central tenants do. The Post said retail analysts believe the store should generate at least $100 million in sales per year. Real estate executives interviewed by the Post expressed some measure of surprise that the agency wasn’t able to recoup some percentage. [more]

Renderings of the Fulton Street Transit Center (source: MTA)

Unlike its Grand Central Terminal, where the Metropolitan Transportation Authority directly leases space to tenants and has become known as something of a difficult landlord, the MTA will lease all the space in the forthcoming Fulton Street Transit Center to one company and let that firm manage it. According to the Wall Street Journal, the agency hopes to make it a shopping and dining destination.

Once complete in 2014, the three-story glass and steel structure at the corner of Fulton Street and Broadway will have 70,000 square feet of retail space. [more]

Today, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority will finish tunneling the first phase of the Second Avenue Subway, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Trains won’t be running on the new subway line for at least five years, but that’s just a blip in the long history of the project, which was first proposed in the 1920s and has been kicked around ever since. [more]

Second Avenue Subway construction

The life of the the rocks being dug up as part of the Second Avenue Subway construction does not end on Second Avenue. Instead, the rocks have become part of an ecosystem as they are being used in construction projects around the New York and New Jersey region, WNYC reported. Contractor Skanska has an agreement with the Metropolitan Transportation Administration to transport the rocks off-site to Newark. There, at Armored Recycling, the “mole rock” is turned into usable construction material using a machine called the jaw crusher. 
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