Skip to content

Search Results for: "65 commercial"

65 Commercial Street Update

Below is a copy of the letter from MTA Chair Jay Walder to Deputy Mayor Robert Steel, confirming the MTA’s acceptance of alternate sites for the Paratransit and EMS vehicles currently located at 65 Commercial Street. Of note is the MTA’s commitment to use the Maspeth Paratransit site for vehicle storage only, not as depot. […]

MTA Ready to Leave 65 Commercial

In a letter to the Mayor’s office, the MTA has finally agreed to move the operations currently housed at 65 Commercial Street. The sticking point on the move – which the MTA agreed to almost exactly 6 years ago – was the MTA’s refusal to accept the compensatory sites offered by the City. Today, the […]

What’s Going on at 65 Commercial?

A few weeks ago, all of the powers that be in North Brooklyn seemed to be aligned behind a single vision – getting the MTA to live up to its commitment to get out of 65 Commercial Street. Now, any deal to turn 65 Commercial seems about to founder on the rocks. Photo: Queens Ledger […]

Progress at 65 Commercial

David Yassky’s office said tonight that there is (finally) some progress on the City’s acquisition of 65 Commercial Street. The big stumbing block – MTA intransigence – seems to have been overcome, and the agency that answers to no one has agreed to two potential relocation sites. The City now needs to do a feasibility […]

Not a Park: 65 Commercial Street

65 Commercial Street: Not a Park Like I said, its Spring and everyone is thinking parks. And that includes Councilmember (and Comptroller candidate) David Yassky, who has been thinking about 65 Commercial Street for a while now. Tomorrow (14 May) at 1:30, Yassky will be holding a rally on the steps of City Hall to […]

8 May 2013

Ugliest, Scariest, Most Horrible [✜]

The last thing Greenpoint ever wanted was a wall of buildings. This is the ugliest, scariest, most horrible plan.

It would have been great if all these people cared back in 2004 or so when all of this was getting approved. Olechowski is right - there was a lot of activism within the community to get a better plan out of the rezoning (going back to the mid 1990s), but what was approved is what was approved.

And except for the height of 77 Commercial, just about everything here is what was approved in 2005. And the height of 77 Commercial has an actual community benefit attached to it - a new park next door at 65 Commercial. Whether that is a trade-off worth making is another question.

Greenpoint Landing Lands Tonight

Greenpoint Landing (via Crain’s) Architect: Handel Architects Greenpoint Landing – the 22-acre development at the north end of the Greenpoint waterfront – is scheduled to make its public debut at a Community Board 1 meeting this evening*. From what I’ve heard to date, the project itself is largely as of right – the number of […]

28 August 2012

City Seeks Developer to Finance Parks on Greenpoint Waterfront [✜]

The Daily News is a bit confused about the air-rights sale at 65 Commercial Street.

The sale of the air rights themselves is not a "new plan" - it was one of the points of agreement between the Bloomberg administration and the City Council back in 2005. What is new is that those same points of agreement earmarked the funds from the sale of the air rights was supposed to go towards a $2 million tenant legal fund and a $10 "waterfront affordable housing and infrastructure fund". As I understand it, the tenant legal fund was funded by the City a few years back, when it became clear that the air rights transfer was not imminent. But I don't believe the infrastructure fund was ever funded.

The headline of the News, and some of the quotes from "a developer who asked to remain anonymous" in the article also imply that this is a wide open RFP. It is actually quite a narrow one - there are only two developers who can reasonably use the air rights from 65 Commercial, and they are the owners of the adjacent properties to either side: 77 Commercial Street to the east and the massive Park Tower site to the west. A small market, indeed.

Transmitter Park and the 2005 Rezoning

http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20120820/greenpoint/city-open-transmitter-park-this-weekend

14 August 2012

City Attempts to Develop Long-Stalled Greenpoint Park [✜]

The City has issued an RFP for the sale of the 65 Commercial Street air rights - which could be an important step in the process of breaking the log jam over the City's commitment to turn this property into a public park.