First Look at Triangle Court

04/20/2011 | Comment

Triangle Court, proposed design
Architect: KOH Architecture
Photo: nycmayorsoffice

Via Azi Paybarah, I came across this photo on the Mayor’s flickr stream (and also learned that the Mayor had a flickr stream).

Azi (and others) seem to be interested in the political ramifications of the photo (that’s Vito Lopez’s head cropped out at the top corner), but I was more interested in the design for the proposed building proposed for the former gas station site at Keap, Grand and Borinquen. The new building is designed by KOH Architecture of Little Neck/Flushing. Unfortunately, it will do nothing to raise the bar for design in the Union Avenue triangle (if anything, it lowers the bar quite a few notches).

Nitehawk Cinema to Open on Metropolitan (Soon)

04/12/2011 | Comment

Nitehawk Cinema Building
Photo: via Curbed

Nitehawk Cinema has been in the news a bunch lately. The Journal ($$) had a piece the other day, followed by Curbed (“finally opening soon”) and now the Brooklyn Paper. The project has been development for ages (I think the residential development was originally approved as a variance prior to the 2005 rezoning), and the Brooklyn Paper reports that the most recent delays in finishing it were due to financing problems that arose in (surprise, surprise) 2008. I have also heard that the table-service-at-a-movie-theater concept took a long time to get approved. The model – popular in the south (I first came across it in Tennessee, where you can get a pitcher of beer while you watch a movie) – apparently did not mesh well with NY liquor laws.

But all those problems have apparently been resolved, and now the lights are on (literally – go by at night and check out the light up facade) and the place is ready to open.

Rogue Construction on North 7th Street

Residents of N. Seventh Street in Williamsburg are fuming over a new condo being built so close to its neighbors that its scaffolding juts into their terraces and bits of building debris fall onto their property. … The four-story concrete structure developed by Greenpoint contractor Michael Siwiec is [next to] a four-story stone building constructed before World War II.

Not a stone building.

Permastone, that is. Odds are it is wood frame underneath. And from well before World War II.

Yeah, it sucks to have a sidewalk bridge installed in front of your house. Sucks more to have a brick fall on your head, though. Seems to me the owner should embrace the sidewalk bridge (it might even be their legal responsibility to allow it), particularly if the builder is the nightmare that they claim he is.

The Edge’s New Math – Now Over 50% Sold!

04/05/2011 | Comment

Earlier this week, I questioned the numeracy of the Edge’s PR team. This was based on an article in the Brooklyn Eagle, which said the Edge was “approaching 50 percent sold” with only 160 of 565 units sold (which works out to 28% sold in the real world).

Today, Brownstoner reports that the Edge has sent out a press release announcing that they are now over 50% sold. Sounds like a good week for the Edge.

Well, not that good.

The latest numbers include contracts signed as well as closings (presumably the Eagle’s numbers should have included contracts as well). Adding contracts (100) to closings (165 now), the Edge says that it has “sold” 53% of its 500 units.

So, if you count your chickens before they hatch and lower your denominator, you too can increase your sales from 28% to 53% in a matter of days!

(Clearly, it is the Eagle’s math I should have been questioning, not the Edge’s.)

Williamsburg Waterfront Projects Reborn

Interesting (as in reality-challenged) take on the state of the Williamsburg waterfront by Crain’s:

The seven-block stretch of Kent Avenue running from North Third Street up to North 10th along the waterfront in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is making a comeback. Activity on the strip—which became one of the borough’s hottest areas for residential development during the boom years, and something of a ghost town during the recession—is picking up again.

With the exception of 111 Kent (the zig-zag condo at North 7th and Kent), there wasn’t a single stalled project on the Williamsburg waterfront. 175 Kent started post-boom, and has been progressing steadily; same with 157 Kent, the skinny condo next door to the north. For the record, 80 Metropolitan, 56 Metropolitan, 175 Kent, 184 Kent, 157 Kent, Northside Piers 2, Edge South and Edge North were all constructed during the recession; Northside 1 and North 8 were finished before the recession (and 184 Kent was a condo-cum-rental well before the bust).

Four years after the opening of the Northside Piers luxury high-rise—the first of Toll Brothers Inc.’s planned three-building complex—55% of the 180 units are sold or in contract. Sales also are perking up next door at The Edge, where deals on 160 of the 565 units have closed and 100 are in contract.

I had to check the dateline on the article, but it really is April, 2011 (and not April 1). Clearly the numbers they are running for Northside Piers are for tower #2, which opened in 2010; tower #1 (was it really finished four years ago?) sold out long ago.

(At the Edge, the innumeracy seems to run in the opposite direction – according to their math (swallowed whole by the Eagle):

160 / 565 = .5

(OK, they did say “almost” 50% – I guess 28%, rounded up, is closer to 50% than 0%).)

Things are looking up on the waterfront in other ways too:

other pieces of the new residential strip are also coming together—including a soccer field in Bushwick Inlet Park along the waterfront, which is expected to be available to the public shortly.

Who were all those people playing on the field all last summer??

To reach trendy restaurants and hip bars, however, the new crowd still must walk over to Bedford Avenue or North Sixth Street and mingle with the old crowd.

OK – you didn’t really go to Williamsburg, did you? Maybe this really is an April 1 dateline after all.