Javits Center Expansion | Office of Gov. Andrew Cuomo
The $1.5 billion expansion of the Javits Center has wrapped: "So today we're announcing the completion of the new expanded Javits Center, which is going to be an economic engine for years to come. It is a 1.2 million-square-foot expansion. It goes from 2.1 million square feet to 3.3 million square feet, a 50 percent increase. And it's remodified for the needs of today. It's not just a convention center with massive open space, which is what convention centers were 20, 30 years ago. Now it has 200,000 square feet of meeting room space, exhibit hall space, a 54,000 square foot ballroom—the largest in the region—glass-enclosed rooftop, a new glass atrium. And while it did phenomenal things for New York City, this convention center also created traffic for the West side. We built a four-level, 27 loading dock marshaling facility that will take all the trucks that are coming to the convention center, puts them in an indoor facility, more than 20,000 event-related needed trucks off the street annually, freeing congestion on the West side, reducing pollution on the West side and making life better for the communities that are around the convention center. $1.5 billion expansion. Works in partnership with the hotel industry, the tourism industry, will generate 6,000 new jobs and nearly $400 million in additional economic activity annually. And it could not come at a better time." (Gov. Andrew Cuomo; see photos of the completed project here)
New construction projects off to a historically slow start: "Plans for new construction projects in the city hit their lowest level in more than a decade, according to a new report from the Real Estate Board of New York. Plans filed by companies for new projects spanned only about 5.4 million square feet overall during the first quarter—the lowest total since the fourth quarter of 2010. The companies filed plans for just 98 multifamily projects: the lowest total since the third quarter of 2011. Overall, firms filed plans for 407 new buildings, a roughly 25 percent drop compared with the previous quarter but a roughly 13.1 percent increase compared with the first quarter of last year, the report says. The total square footage of new projects dropped by 42.2 percent year over year and 52.7 percent quarter over quarter, and only two of the 407 projects were larger than 300,000 square feet." (Crain's)
Park politics and climate change—the East Side Coast Resiliency Project is a deeply emotional issue for many: "The whole story was full of vicious ironies. The city had prioritized flood protection for the vulnerable Lower East Side but, in doing so, had subjected the neighborhood to an experiment in community-engaged planning, under a looming deadline that distorted the debate. The city’s reversal had then deepened divisions inside the community. 'The city owns that division,' Avila-Goldman said. And while there’s no overt plan to bring in private developers, Naomi Schiller of East River Alliance points out that it would be foolish to think an attractive, brand-new park with stable flood protection wouldn’t increase land values and eventually force working-class populations out. It is a well-documented process known as 'green gentrification.' As geographer Samuel Stein puts it, 'Real estate displaces them before climate change has a chance to.'" (Curbed)
Ghost Forest | Maya Lin | Madison Square Park Conservancy
NOW OPEN: "Long-delayed but ultimately triumphant, Maya Lin’s stark commentary on climate change finally opened today in Manhattan’s Madison Square Park. Ghost Forest has transplanted and “resurrected” 49 Atlantic white cedar trees killed by saltwater infiltration in New Jersey’s Pine Barrens to the park, where they’ll remain through November 14, 2021." (Architect's Newspaper)
Mayor de Blasio announces "Open Boulevards": "Mayor Bill de Blasio today announced 'Open Boulevards,' a new program to enhance and expand 10 multi-block corridors to create dining destination experiences throughout the city. The plan builds off last year’s successful Open Streets: Restaurants program, which transformed miles of restaurant-heavy streets into open space for diners, cyclists, and pedestrians to enjoy. In addition to creating extra space for dining, Open Boulevards will feature cultural activities, community-based programming, landscaping and other beautification, and art installations." (Office of the Mayor; See all the locations here)
+POOL | PLAYLAB, INC. and Family New York. Rendering by Luxigon
+POOL gets a city-approved spot and readies to start due diligence: "There is finally a city-approved spot for the long-proposed floating Plus Pool to drop anchor in the East River, just north of the Manhattan Bridge on the Lower East Side. [...] 'We have an official confirmation to succeed with the next steps for the project,' Kara Meyer, Plus Pool’s managing director, told me [reported Carl Swanson]. 'We have a home. Mayoral candidates are talking about it.' [..] So what’s next? 'We are going to move forward' with 'due diligence,' Meyer says. 'The next big hurdle is regulation.'” (Curbed)
“While the proposed building is interesting, what we're really voting on is the zoning”: The developers of 840 Atlantic Avenue, a proposed 18-story residential tower at the southeast corner of Vanderbilt Avenue, have for months sought Community Board 8 (CB8)’s support for upzoning a site occupied mainly by a drive-through McDonald’s and limited to low-rise manufacturing zoning. After getting previous pushback, they came to CB8’s Land Use Committee May 6 with a surprise compromise: to cut the bulk of their building by about 7 percent, with an unspecified reduction in the previously estimated 316 rental apartments. That didn’t fly, as the committee voted 14-2, with one abstention, to withhold support unless the proposed building was reduced to conform to the board’s previously proposed M-CROWN rezoning." (Bklynr)
