Author: Halden

Another Whole Foods in Williamsburg Rumor

03/14/2012 | Comment

The empty hulk of a building at North 4th and Bedford is the site of the latest Whole-Foods-in-Williamsburg rumor.

The Post reports that the property has changed hands, with the Backer Group having sold to new owners. The new owner confirms that “several national tenants are interested” in the property (isn’t that always the case?), and the Post says that “sleuths have ferreted out” that Whole Foods is the intended tenant.

This latest rumor has a bit more heft than the recent vague rumors of a Whole Foods on Kent Avenue. The fact that the property has new owners also lends some credence to the idea (the Backer Group had previously floated CVS, Marshalls, Starbucks, Capital One and other national chains for their various properties on this block of Bedford Avenue).

Still, some things don’t quite add up. The Post has the new owner saying that the development will be 150,000 square feet, a third of which will be luxury rentals. According to city records, the whole site (lots 6 and 24) is 47,400sf – at an FAR of 2.0, that only yields a tad less than 95,000sf (maybe I’m missing something with the MX M1/R6B rules). But others are telling the Post that Whole Foods will occupy about 40,000sf, and New York Sports Club another 15,000sf on the second floor. That works out to about two-thirds of the development, in line with the owner’s estimates.

Other numbers that have to be worked out are the size of the market itself. 40,000sf is, believe it or not, on the small side for a Whole Foods – both their Union Square store and their proposed Gowanus Store are 50,000sf or more. And while there will certainly be plenty of foot traffic at North 4th and Bedford, between customers and deliveries, a market of this size will make the vehicular traffic in this corner of the neighborhood even worse.

And I wonder what Williamsburg Food Town (a Backer Group tenant) thinks of all this? (Or Retro Fitness, for that matter, which is just opening up a 20,000sf fitness center around the corner on North 3rd and Berry.)

[via Brownstoner]

Domino for Sale

03/12/2012 | Comment

In news that should surprise no one (but is surprising nonetheless), the Observer reports that the Domino site is on the block. Apparently, the Katan Group and their development partner CPC Resources have been shopping all or part of it to potential buyers.

A spokesman for CPCR told the Observer:

We are pursuing various options that will achieve our goals: to realize value for ourselves and our partners, and to insure that development is consistent with all project entitlements

Chief among the entitlements CPCR received (and of primary value to them, their partner and any potential buyers) was approval from the City to redevelop the site for as many as 2,400 housing units. In exchange, CPCR promised to build 660 units of affordable housing, a lot of open space and a public school, all (nicely) designed by architects Rafael Viñoly and Beyer Blinder Belle. Most of this of these benefits were not guaranteed – something that was a very big issue for people opposed to the project back in 2010.

Hopefully we were wrong.

Building Heats Up Down By The East River

03/11/2012 | Comment

Crain’s looks at development on the East River and finds things are booming up and down the Brooklyn waterfront. From the next tower at Northside Piers, to a hotel at Brooklyn Bridge Park, to industrial redevelopment at Bush Terminal, a lot is happening. But no news on the Greenpoint waterfront, and nothing new at Domino, which “hopes to set a start date soon” (they originally had a start date in 2011).

Is This the End of Williamsburg Nightlife?

Short answer: no.

Metropolitan’s liquor license is resting on tenuously safe ground. The community board can only make recommendations to the State Liquor Authority — they don’t have the actual power to take away a bar’s booze.

Somewhat longer answer: Metropolitan’s liquor license is very safe (despite the fact that most of the patrons quoted in the article pretty much admit the place is a bad neighbor) – SLA has stated categorically that a liquor license is just like a driver’s license, perpetually renewable unless the license holder engages in some act of malfeasance (criminal activity, not paying (enough) excise taxes).

East River Ferry: Perks on the Horizon

02/24/2012 | Comment

Metro Focus interviews the CEO of the East River Ferry:

Ridership last week saw 1,500 riders per day. You use the word drop only in comparison to a robust level of ridership over the summer. It’s interesting how people choose to characterize the numbers. We are very impressed with how commuter ridership has grown through the winter.

Ridership is certainly down from the summer (duh), but it would be interesting to know how it compares with projections before the winter. Anecdotally, there are a lot more people riding the East River Ferry in the winter than ever rode the Water Taxi (which had fewer stops and much more limited schedule). But the East River Ferry is also caught in a bit of a catch-22 – they have reduced the number of boats in the winter months, so service is only hourly during the day, and half-hourly during parts of the morning and evening rush. That makes it much harder to just “jump on the ferry” to get somewhere.

As to the perks on the horizon – beer. You heard it here first:

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New Public School at Roberto Clemente

02/24/2012 | 2 Comments

arbor.jpg

A Child Grows in Brooklyn has details on the new public school that is opening in place of the former PS 19 Roberto Clemente school on South 3rd between Keap and Rodney. The new school will be the Brooklyn Arbor School (I think DOE was calling it PS 114) at the Roberto Clemente Campus (hopefully this means the Clemente is staying, not being phased out).

According to ACGiB, the Arbor school will be a magnet school, open to students citywide, but with a preference for students from District 14 (PS 84 is a magnet school too). Enrollment has been extended through 16 March.

City Cuts Out East W’burg, G’point From Bike Share

02/23/2012 | Comment

The Brooklyn Paper reports that the city’s proposed bike share program omits “bike kiosks east of Bushwick Avenue and McGuinness Boulevard, where an estimated 30,000 of transit-starved residents live”. Despite the typically breathless Brooklyn Paper headline, this is not news. In fact, the plan all along (as shown in the map at right) has been to limit the pilot program to lower Manhattan, downtown Brooklyn and parts of North Brooklyn.

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October 2011 map of bike-sharing phase in
Source: The Atlantic Cities

So yes, transit-starved residents of East Williamsburg and the eastern reaches of Greenpoint will not have access to bike sharing on their block until phase 2 of the program. Nor will residents of the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side, Harlem, Washington Heights, Inwood, the Bronx, Queens, Red Hook, Sunset Park, Crown Heights, Flatbush, the South Slope, Bushwick, East New York and one or two other neighborhoods.

It’s not clear if the phasing is driven by the vendor (Alta) or the city, but it does seem to be a factor of the initial number of bikes in the program – 10,000 bikes – and a 2009 City Planning study that determined the optimal number of bike slots per station – 24. With 10,000 bikes, there is only capacity for 600 stations.