McCarren Park Pool outscores Barclays Center

Seriously?

The area around McCarren was developed into condoland years ago (a lot of projects predate the 2005 zoning). I’d bet that the prior redevelopment, not to mention the massive rezoning of the area in 2005, had a lot more to do with the price of development sites in the area than a few million gallons of water in a pool do (as fantastic as that pool might be).

I can’t see the actual report from Eastern Consolidated, but the total volume comparison is BS. Look at $/sf (mentioned in the Crain’s report), and the areas are a lot closer (though McCarren still “wins” by 20%, not 200%).

And then decide which is the apple and which is the orange.

Post-Sandy Rezoning at CB1

06/25/2013 | Comment

The agenda for Community Board 1’s Land Use Committee meeting tonight is a pretty sleepy affair – two BSA applications, both of which are retreads that the Board has heard in years past. However, there is one very important agenda item, which is a presentation by City Planning on the City’s proposed Flood Resilience Zoning Text Amendment, which modifies the zoning to allow new development to meet the new flood zone requirements.

I saw the presentation last week at CB2, and what the city is proposing is to modify the zoning to allow flood-resilient design with no (or minimal) impact on development rights. For those of you hoping that Sandy and the new FEMA flood zones will make development in Zone A impossible, this makes development possible. Actually, post-Sandy regulations don’t make development in Zone A impossible in the first place, in simple terms, they only restrict development and use at the base of buildings. These changes to the zoning will, in some case, permit taller development to compensate for the fact that ground floors now need to be flood-proofed in some manner and will no longer be usable floor area. Other modifications include not counting construction below the flood level as floor area and allowing greater amounts of rooftop mechanical area.

When: Tonight (June 25), 6:30 pm
Where: CB1 offices, 435 Graham Avenue

G Train Weekend Outages

It could have been worse, but if you plan your weekends around the G train being in operation, make new plans:

The [MTA…] considered closing the Greenpoint tube on the G train all summer for repair work. Instead, the tunnel will be closed for 12 weekends this year. Service will be replaced with a shuttle bus between Brooklyn and Queens. The Greenpoint tube will likely be closed during the summer of 2014 for additional repairs, the official said.

East Williamsburg, Queens

05/16/2013 | 1 Comment

PS71

PS 71, East Williamsburg, L. I.
Photo: via ebay
Map

Last week, Gothamist had some fun with a Kalmon Dolgin real estate listing that purported to be in East Williamsburg when it was in fact in Ridgewood, Queens.

I’m sure Kalmon Dolgin was just fluffing their listing, as Gothamist said, but, there is a bit of historical accuracy to the moniker. Historically, there was a village just over the Queens border that was called East Williamsburg (Long Island!), as the above postcard will attest. This was completely distinct from the enlarged area of the town (and later city) of Williamsburg east of Union Avenue, which was annexed to the original town of Williamsburg (west of Union) in 1835.

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.

South Williamsburg Creeps North

An investment group led by Waterbridge Capital’s Joel Schreiber has closed on the purchase of nearly an entire South Williamsburg block, with plans for high-end retail development, the Wall Street Journal reported… Waterbridge is looking to bring “high-end retail,” tenants to the block, a source familiar with the transaction told the Journal. Doing so would continue the transformation of South Williamsburg into a trendy retail destination, with stores such as Whole Foods making their way to the neighborhood.

$30 million for a South Williamsburg block?!? And a Whole Foods?!!?

Oh, by “South Williamsburg” they really mean “Bedford and Driggs avenues and North Third and North Fourth streets”. (And Waterbridge already acquired half this block last year – remember J. Crew?

Prime Northside Rents $1,600 Higher Than Neighborhood’s Southside

Yet another very good reason to move to the Southside.

The spate of rent “surveys” coming out about Williamsburg and Greenpoint are by and large nothing but linkage fodder for the brokerages putting them together. The n in the equation is usually pretty low, rendering the whole thing statistically suspect in the first place. In the case of this latest report, the comparison of Northside to Southside is apples and oranges in so many ways.

Greenpoint Landing Lands Tonight

05/06/2013 | Comment

Park Tower Group Greenpoint

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 units, tower heights, tower massing, etc. are all what was approved in the 2005 waterfront rezoning (as Matt Chaban notes, the development has gone from glassy to a more “contextual” brick with punched window openings).

What is new is that the developer will be constructing the affordable housing that the city had committed to as part of the 2005 rezoning (Greenpoint Landing is building 20% inclusionary on their property, and building additional units on a city-owned site that is being wrapped into the project – the number of affordable units isn’t actually increasing from what was promised). The other new thing is the inclusion of a school as part of the development – this latter bit might be the only thing that requires an actual zoning modification.

There is another item on tonight’s agenda that will require a zoning modification – the new development up the street at 77 Commercial Street. That project is acquiring the air rights from the MTA parcel at 65 Commercial Street. The air rights purchase will allow the city to construct the park it committed to build at 65 Commercial, but also certainly taller and bulkier development on the adjacent 77 Commercial site.

The Greenpoint waterfront has been aslumber ever since the 2005 rezoning was approved (eight years ago this week). Greenpoint missed the last real estate boom, but seems destined to get caught up in this one, and when that happens, it will make the Northside and even Long Island City look quaint by comparison.

*Pardon the Facebook link – CB1’s website is too useless to link to.↩