Hale and Hearty Soups, which opened its first store in Manhattan in 1996, has outgrown its production headquarters in the borough and hopes to complete a new 20,000-square-foot facility in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, by spring.
That’s a lotta soup.
Soup
The MTA Lies to You
What a great traffic system…
More Democrats for Romney
Genius advertisement for the Dems for Mitt movement (The Mitten for the Mitt?):
Democrats for Romney
Michigan Democrats should vote for Mitt Romney, because if Mitt wins, Democrats win.
Any Affordable at Berry and North 12th?
From Brownstoner, word today that the parking lot at the corner of Berry and North 12th (last used by Brooklyn Brewery to park their trucks) is going to be a rental project:
Last month Manhattan-based real estate firm LCOR partnered with Lehman Brothers and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System to buy 34 Berry Street, and they plan to build a 6-story, 140-unit rental on the site.
The site is very large, and zoned for R6A – the big question is will it use the inclusionary housing program to provide affordable housing?
The inclusionary housing bonus on upland sites has so far been a disappointment. Only one project (at Kent and North 8th) has opted to build with the bonus. Dunn Development’s Cook and Varick Street project hopes to have some of its affordable housing generate bonuses for upland sites further west (it is also the receiving site for some of the waterfront affordable housing). But clearly, developers have not been rushing out to build affordable housing upland.
There are a few reasons for this, all of which might be solvable at 34 Berry. First off, most development in the Northside and Greenpoint (the only areas where the inclusionary bonus applies) has been condominium, and it is difficult to structure onsite affordable in a condominium project (unless you put the affordable housing offsite, which was done at Kent and North 8th). Second, you need a project with a certain minimum density – R6B clearly doesn’t have much potential to generate affordable housing, but a large R6A site such as this might.
So perhaps the stars might finally align for a project to build affordable housing under the existing zoning guidelines (rather than throwing out the zoning entirely).
Speaking of Branding
Further to the discussion yesterday about the idiocy of naming your new condominium development after a light switch, it is worth pointing out that the (shudder) Decora was designed by the same architect that brought us the Lucent. I have no idea if the same marketing geniuses are behind both projects, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the same folks who would name their new condominium development after a recently bankrupt casualty of the dot-com boom would also name a development after a line of lighting fixtures available at the local Home Depot.
But lest you think stupid branding decisions are limited to only to ugly Brooklyn condominium projects, they are not. Take, for instance, Xerox – the venerable office technology company. Clearly, their pixellated “X” logo was not cutting it, so they turned to Interbrand, who came up with a cutting-edge X-on-a-ball logo. Surely they have a good reason for this change:
Our new brand reflects who we are [the Danish national football team?], the markets we serve and the innovation that differentiates us in our industry. We have expanded into new markets, created new businesses, acquired new capabilities, developed technologies that launched new industries — all to ensure we make it easier, faster, and less costly for our customers to share information
Congratulations, now no one has the faintest idea what the hell you sell.
If that meaningless marketing babble sounds familiar, chances are you’ve been going to open houses in the neighborhood:
Warehouse 11 [warning – highly annoying techno loop] debuts 120 designer living environments—studios, one- and two-bedrooms—dreamt up by the noted Andres Escobar & Associates. All created with a whimsically artistic, outside-the-lines approach. Crisscrossing Chic Industrial and Sumptuous Modern in Williamsburg’s oh-so-sweet Bedford Avenue/McCarren Park location.
Clearly, our nation’s marketers have run out of words. And ideas.
Too Easy
This is too damn easy:
We’ve been watching this scary unique building 165 N. 10 Street in the Burg unfold ever since we laid eyes on the rendering […] from the drawing boards of Gene Kaufman Architect… In the meantime, the building is now being identified as The Decora… [Curbed]
Kaufman’s Decora:
Leviton’s Decora light fixture:
