West 83rd street property and rendering of proposed pool (source: Landmarks Preservation Commission via DNAinfo)

The Landmarks Preservation Commission has approved a backyard pool on
an Upper West Side property, as long as the Turkish millionaire
planning its construction shrinks its deck from three stories to two
and decreases the size of the mechanical building by 10 feet, DNAinfo
reported. The pool on West 83rd Street will remain eight feed wide and
57.5 feet long. Ragip Ersin Akarlilar, the owner of Mavi Jeans who
wants to install the pool, has agreed to make changes. But some of the
200 area residents who signed a petition against the plan are still opposed. They are not only worried that the
pool will destroy their quiet, leafy backyards and ruin the historic
quality of the landmarked area. They also fear that excavation for the
pool will weaken nearby foundations and cause water damage. [DNAinfo]   [more]

Triplex at 252 West 74th Street (Source: Propertyshark/Blu Realty Group)

An investor in the popular Hummus Kitchen restaurant chain has listed his triplex apartment on the Upper West Side for $1.65 million, according to Alon Chadad, co-founder of Blu Realty Group, who is co-listing the apartment with Blu co-founder Moshe Balalo (note correction appended). The condominium unit hit the market last Thursday.

The 1,587 square-foot pad, in the walkup building at 252 West 74th Street, between West End Avenue and Broadway, has three bedrooms and three bathrooms. [more]

From the March issue: These days, few areas of Manhattan can be considered undervalued, despite fallout from the recent recession. “At this point, Manhattan is pretty mature,” said developer Matthew Blesso, president of Blesso Properties. “We’re going through this incredible recession, and it’s not like some of the neighborhoods are going to the pits, the way they did in previous recessions.” Still, there are pockets of the city that haven’t yet reached their full potential, where small investors (or homebuyers) looking for the greatest financial upside can snap up deals. [more]

From the April issue: There are still plenty of unsold new construction condos in New York City, especially in areas like Midtown, the Financial District and Williamsburg. But brokers say that months of busy sales activity (combined with some sellers taking their units off the market) is creating a shortage of inventory in some hot spots. Indeed, Miller Samuel’s fourth-quarter market report found that Manhattan inventory was down 18 percent from the previous quarter and almost 25 percent over the fourth quarter of 2008. In some neighborhoods, buyers are increasingly frustrated because they can’t find the type of apartment — often resale condos or prewar co-ops — they want. As a result, the competition for those apartments, when they do come on the market, can make the downturn seem like a distant memory. This month, The Real Deal asked brokers to identify the types of Manhattan apartments facing the worst shortages. [more]

A model for the Riverside Center, a 2,500-apartment mixed-use development designed by Extell Development for the Upper West Side, was revealed to the public this week, according to the Westside Independent. The complex, which would stretch between 59th and 61st streets and between West End Avenue and the West Side Highway, would include five residential towers, 210,000 square feet of retail space, a movie theater, a 250-room hotel, and a school for grades K through eight, if Extell’s proposal goes through. This unveiling came on the heels of massive community input on the project, but City Council member Gale Brewer said that Extell’s latest plans didn’t adequately address the residents’ concerns. “It’s an improvement, but it’s not a big improvement,” Brewer said. “The environmental issues have not really been answered.”

Click image for larger version

From the February issue: The fourth-quarter market reports revealed that the recession’s worst-hit Manhattan neighborhood isn’t newly gentrifying Harlem or even the recently residential Financial District. Midtown — one of the city’s most well-established neighborhoods — saw the sharpest price decreases, the most price cuts and the longest days on the market. What happened? Experts say Midtown West, in particular, fell prey to a hotbed of speculation during the boom, fueled by an abundance of new condos, and the area is now paying the price. During the mid-aughts, thousands of new condo units were built in Midtown and quickly snatched up by investors eager to flip them for six-figure profits in the wildly escalating market of the time. Now, while overall market activity is on the rise again, falling prices have dampened demand from investors, leaving Midtown with an oversupply of condos — and absentee owners frantically trying to unload them. Around 42nd Street, “there are large, monolithic new development buildings, with a lot of investors and pied-à-terre buyers who are now desperate to sell,” explained Sofia Song, vice president of research at StreetEasy. [more]

Turns out Robert Ziff’s $10 million purchase at the Trump International Hotel and Tower at 1 Central Park West wasn’t the only big New Year’s deal. Two other deals filed this week cracked that $10 million mark, one at 25 Central Park West and another at 1133 Fifth Avenue. The first, a penthouse unit listed by Stribling & Associates’ Cathy Taub, closed at $10.05 million, about $1.5 million under the asking price, the Observer reported. The second, sold by Eva Weinstein, ex-wife of movie studio chairman Harvey Weinstein, was bought by Tom Bernstein, president of Chelsea Piers, for about $3 million less than the original asking price.

The year 2009 was a trying time to be a real estate broker, developer or investor, but it never lacked for news. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, the industry watched in awe — and sometimes horror — as residential sales ground to a virtual halt, condo projects stopped in their tracks, office rents shrank and retail stores disappeared. Buyers at buildings like 22 Renwick sued to get out of their contracts, and some were granted the opportunity to back out of their contracts. Meanwhile, an amazing cast of characters — from Kent Swig to Harry Macklowe to Lev Leviev — publicly fought for survival. There were also glimmers of hope, from the opening of the High Line in June to the expansion of Halstead Property into Connecticut to the sale of Former Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld’s sale 16-room co-op apartment at 640 Park Avenue for $25.87 million, almost $5 million more than he bought it for two years ago. Click here to see The Real Deal staff’s picks for the stories that most altered the New York City real estate landscape in 2009. [more]

Burger chain phenom Shake Shack has grand plans for its pending Nolita location at 47 Prince Street on the corner of Mulberry Street. The spot will feature a 30-person rooftop terrace for diners, according to papers recently filed with the Department of Buildings. The Nolita storefront will be the fourth New York City outpost for the chain, whose current locations include 366 Columbus Avenue at West 77th Street, Madison Square Park at the corner of Madison Avenue and East 23rd Street, and Citi Field. The burger chain has made wave this year, with the announcement of its Miami expansion, and the recent rumors of a possible Financial District outpost in the future.

Conventional wisdom tells us that seemingly too-good-to-be-true Craigslist apartments are often just that. But Time Out New York decided to put this theory to the test, visiting the real-life counterparts of some photo-less, dubiously advertised units. The result was surprisingly positive, with just one of the four units examined deemed to be a complete aberration from its promised credentials. The sub-standard apartment in question, a $1,850-per-month one-bedroom with a “bathroom the size of an airplane lavatory” and a “window in the closet; ideal for growing cannabis” was called out for being worse than promised in its ad.