An update to the Ismael Leyva designed tower on West Street, and their application to increase the tower height from 30 to 39 stories. CB1 voted overwhelmingly in favor of the project at last nights board meeting. I was truant, but understand there was no drama.

Meltzer/Mandl, the architects for the Viridian condo in Greenpoint (Magic Johnson, blah, blah, blah) have announced that they have completed the design of the project. Which is good, I guess, because the contractors have been building the project for a year and a half now. Maybe now they can address some of those punch list items Miss Heather noted last week.

Tomorrow evening, NAG will be holding a working meeting to further develop their organizing agenda for 2009. Based on ideas generated by the community at the Oct 2, 2008 Town Hall Organizing Meeting and on feedback from a survey completed by community members, the working meeting will start to develop the following issues as NAG’s priority organizing issues for 2009:

Preserving Affordable Housing Options for Residents
Improving Open Space and Access to the Waterfront
Offering Safe and Quick Transportation Options For the Neighborhood
Improving our Quality of Life and Preserving Community Character

This is an opportunity for folks to help develop the priorities for the coming year(s) for this important neighborhood advocacy group.

What: Kicking off NAG’s 2009 Organizing Agenda

When: Thursday December 4, 2008 at 7pm

Where: Holy Ghost Church Hall Basement, 160 North 5th Street (between Bedford and Driggs)

“Fancy design store Abode” is opening up shop on Grand Street this weekend. 179 is, I think, next door to Mine (just east of Bedford). The building itself has just finished being stuccofied (part of North Brooklyn’s continuing (and unfortunate) leadership role in cheap, ugly artificial siding – at least Grand Street itself continues to flourish).

The Guttmans bring the Brooklyn way to New Haven:

Brooklyn developer State Assets LLC faces a $48,100 fine stemming from a multi-agency investigation into allegations that unprotected workers were removing asbestos from an unventilated State Street property, that piles of asbestos-coated debris had been left unsecured outside, and that illegal immigrants sleeping on cots inside had been carting the tainted material out at night.

From Crain’s NY (subscription required, so extensive quoting follows) comes word that the waterfront is not immune to the real estate carnage.

Northside Piers (the one finished building) hasn’t sold out, and has now gone the rent-to-own route:

One Northside Piers seemed destined to be a winner when the project broke ground two years ago. The luxury condominium, on the waterfront in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, had sweeping views of the Manhattan skyline, a rooftop terrace and a screening room…

Twenty-three months later, the views and all the bells and whistles are still there, but the buyers are missing.

Things are no better next door:

At The Edge, which features 575 luxury condos in two towers and 350 affordable rentals in lower-rise buildings, sales began strong in April but have tapered off drastically… As of late October, Douglaston had sold only 110 apartments; it shelved plans for another 40-story tower.

A glut of units in a neighborhood short on amenities? No one could have this coming:

Plans for 7,000 condos were announced as developers bet that people would pay top dollar to live in one of the city’s hottest up-and-coming neighborhoods. In doing so, they were also wagering that buyers would overlook such things as long hikes to the subway along streets that were still lined with factories and warehouses.

Its worth pointing out here that the Edge and Northside Piers are three blocks from the subway. But there are a dearth of other amenities:

A glaring problem is emerging as people move into the new apartments along Kent Avenue — the profound lack of essential services, including dry cleaners, drugstores and grocers. Developers expect a boom in waterfront retail, but no leases have been signed so far along Kent Avenue, where asking rents hover at about $60 a square foot.

I don’t understand – Tops (on the Waterfront) is only a block and a half away from Northside Piers. And at $60 a foot, whatever comes in is bound to uphold the neighborhood tradition of overpriced necessities.

Yep, no one could have foreseen a problem here.

I was thinking the same thing when I drove by there on Saturday. If there’s an over/under pool, I’ll take under – way under.

Affordable housing at the Edge, via WiD.

Just to be clear, though, if you win the lottery, you don’t actually get to live in the glass tower with all the swells – you’ll be living in the low-rise portion on Kent Avenue. Still, nice digs and only a block to the waterfront esplanade. (Hopefully they’ll let you use the driveway, which is not the case if you rent an affordable unit at Shaefer Landing.)

Another hollow point of agreement?

The $2 million anti-displacement fund was set up as part of the 2005 waterfront rezoning. As it is, it took the city way to long to fund the program. Now they are announcing a 25% cut.

Do you think they’ll cut back the developer windfall by 25% too?