Westchester
Design for the new Tappan Zee unveiled
The state Thruway Authority last month chose a consortium known as Tappan Zee Constructors to design and build a new Tappan Zee Bridge, one of the largest public works projects in the country, the Journal News reported. Tappan Zee Constructors had previously won the state advisory committee’s recommendation with its design for a $3.1 billion, cable-stayed bridge with angled towers. The full cost of the project will be close to $4 billion with environmental mitigation, management and financial expenses. Pennsylvania-based American Bridge Company, which built the existing Tappan Zee in the 1950s, partnered with Fluor Enterprise of Texas and others as Tappan Zee Constructors to win the contract. Construction on the new bridge, which is expected to take just over five years, will begin this year. The two other proposals — a $4 billion plan from a joint venture of Kiewit Infrastructure and Skanska USA, and a $3.9 billion proposal from a Bechtel Infrastructure and Tutor Perini partnership — each needed closer to six years to complete the project.
Connecticut
Hartford to see 1,000 new apartments
Downtown Hartford could see 1,000 new apartments over the next several years in five major projects and smaller conversions, the Hartford Courant reported. Some 85 percent of these units will be studios and one-bedrooms, as developers aim to attract students and young professionals with affordable rents. Currently, studios in Hartford typically range in size from 480 to 950 square feet with rents from $1,000 to 1,500 a month, the Courant reported. “We’re at a critical stage for housing downtown,” Thomas Deller, Hartford’s director of development, told the Courant. “We want housing in Hartford to appeal across all income lines.” Of the projects vying for the $60 million the state has set aside for new downtown housing, the largest is the proposed conversion of the Bank of America office tower at 777 Main Street into 268 apartment units. Another is the planned conversion of the Sonesta Hotel into 193 units, including 54 studios. The Sonesta project could begin construction early this year, delivering units in 2014. Overall apartment vacancy in downtown Hartford is less than 5 percent, and even less for studio apartments. The overall Connecticut residential rental market showed signs of strength in November, the Courant reported. Rents rose 6.7 percent in New Haven from November of last year, while Hartford saw a 3.3 percent increase over the same period and Fairfield County registered a 2.9 percent uptick.
Hudson Valley
Massive Will-O-Woods estate sells
Will-O-Woods
The Will-O-Woods estate in Croton-on-Hudson, one of the largest residential properties on the market in the Hudson Valley, is now in contract to be sold for the first time in 82 years, the Journal News reported. The 45-acre property, which has its own eight-acre lake, was on the market for $5.9 million with David Turner of Houlihan Lawrence. Turner, who had been marketing the property for two years, declined to reveal the sale price but confirmed that the property has gone into contract. The house has 14 rooms, eight bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms. It has been owned since the 1930s by the family of Maurice Rosenthal, a onetime Securities and Exchange Commission official. Recently, the Rosenthals sold about 50 acres of the estate to New York City to preserve the land for its watershed.