Deputy Mayor Robert Steel

The Department of City Planning will launch a new initiative July 2 to speed the pre-certification process for projects that require land use review, Deputy Mayor Robert Steel announced today at an Association for a Better New York event.

Called Business Process Reform, or BluePRint, the new program will allow City Planning to review applications up to 50 percent faster than it does today, expediting applicants’ progress prior to the formal public review stage, known as Uniform Land Use Review Process, which takes a maximum of seven months. [more]

From left: Deputy Mayor Robert Steel and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn

New York City officials are expanding a business program aimed at streamlining the process of opening a new restaurant to include the entire retail spectrum, officials announced today. The first step is the launch of a survey to collect information on obstacles that impede businesses opening in the city.

The program is based on the New Business Acceleration Team that Mayor Michael Bloomberg created in his 2010 State of the City speech. [more]

The first phase of the massive Hunter’s Point South project on the Long Island City waterfront will be comprised of 950 units, and Crain’s reported that all of them will be affordable.

The city, which signed on Related Companies in February to partner with Phipps houses and Monadnock Construction to build the 5,000-unit complex, had initially intended just 75 percent of the first phase apartments to be set-aside for middle- and lower-income families. Ground will break sometime next year…. [more]

From left: City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden, Deputy Mayor Robert Steel and Paul Selver, co-chair of the land use department at law firm Kramer Levin Naftalis & FrankelThe Bloomberg administration on Dec. 12 will unveil a set of 20 new “green” zoning guidelines aimed at removing obstacles to sustainable building practices, city officials said.

“This is the most comprehensive effort to sweep away impediments to green buildings in our zoning,” City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden told The Real Deal on break at “Zoning the City,” a day-long conference sponsored by the agency, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and the Steven L. Newman Real Estate Institute of Baruch College, convened to address the future of zoning in the city.

She and Robert Steel, New York’s deputy mayor for economic development, who first announced the planned guidelines, declined to give specifics to the crowd of real estate pros, academics and city planning experts. … [more]

From left: Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the Z NYC HotelAt today’s opening ceremony for the Z NYC Hotel in Long Island City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that the city will reach a record 90,000 hotel rooms by the end of the year, a 24 percent increase from five years ago.

According to the mayor, 2,500 hotel rooms have been added to the city’s inventory this year, 30 percent of which come from the outer boroughs. Additionally, 7,000 more rooms are in the pipeline, with approximately 2,800 of those outside of Manhattan. At the 11-01 43rd Avenue site of the 100-room hotel, which was built by Henry Zilberman and first opened its doors in July, Bloomberg noted that more visitors are coming to the city to experience neighborhoods beyond the traditional tourism hot spots. – Adam Fusfeld… [more]

Deputy Mayor Robert Steel

Deputy Mayor Robert Steel, who is in charge of economic development, appears to be living most of the time in Greenwich, Conn., even though New York City law requires that top officials reside in the city, the New York Daily News reported.

When the Daily News visited his Greenwich mansion last Sunday afternoon, his wife initially told a reporter Steel wasn’t home because he was “in New York,” before he pulled up moments later. He insisted angrily he was just visiting Connecticut. “I can’t remember the last time I was here on a weekday,” he said. … [more]

From left: Rudin Management’s Bill Rudin, Deputy Mayor Robert Steel and Regional Plan Association’s Robert Yaro

Rudin Management’s Bill Rudin and Regional Plan Association’s Robert Yaro are among 20 appointees to Governor
Andrew Cuomo’s search committee for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s new chairman and CEO, according to a statement released by the governor’s office today.

Current Chairman Jay Walder announced last month that he was resigning
to become CEO of the MTR corporation in Hong Kong. Rudin is president of Rudin Management and is also chair of the Association for a Better NY. – Miranda Neubauer… [more]

New York City has issued an official request for proposals relating to Applied Sciences NYC, its initiative to build or expand a state-of-the-art engineering and applied sciences campus at one of three city sites, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Deputy Mayor Robert Steel and New York City Economic Development Corporation President Seth Pinsky announced today.

“Our offer is straightforward,” Bloomberg said of the proposal, initially unveiled in December. “We will provide prime New York real estate — at virtually no cost, plus up to $100 million in infrastructure upgrades, in exchange for a university’s commitment to build or expand a world-class science and engineering campus here in our city.”

The city is offering real estate at three possible locations, he said — Governors Island, Brooklyn Navy Yard, and Roosevelt Island. – Katherine Clarke… [more]

Admirals Row redevelopment renderings (courtesy of GreenbergFarrow)

The six-acre neighborhood retail and industrial redevelopment of Brooklyn Navy Yard’s Admiral Row site has finally reached the beginning of the public review process, decades after it was first proposed, Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Robert Steel and Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation President Andrew Kimball announced today.

If approved by Community Board 2, the City Planning Commission and New York City Council, the site will be transferred from the federal government to the city-owned Brooklyn Navy Yard and become home to a 74,000-square-foot supermarket, 79,000 square feet of retail space and 127,000 square feet of industrial space. It would create 500 permanent retail and industrial jobs as well as hundreds of temporary construction positions.
–Katherine Clarke… [more]

Regional Plan Association, a prominent civic advocacy group, is supporting builders and real estate executives in appealing for concessions from construction unions, the New York Times reported. Labor costs, the advocates argue, will force builders to hire non-union employees.

The association compiled a 51-page report arguing for the elimination of obsolete work rules and feather-bedding and advocating for a traditional eight-hour work day. The expiration of 30 union contacts in June marks an opportunity for reform in the $25 billion unionized industry, they say. This comes less than three weeks after 400 union construction workers protested outside the Taj Pierre Hotel as Sam Zell, founder of Equity Residential Properties, arrived for a speaking engagement. They were unhappy that Zell uses non-union workers…. [more]