CO-OP/CONDO BUYERS

Last week it was a public library in Brooklyn Heights and a chunk of a seminary’s campus in Morningside Heights. This week it’s a gas station in Harlem that’s being erased to make way for yet another luxury condo development.

Now rising above the statue of the famed abolitionist on Frederick Douglass Circle, at the northwest corner of Central Park, is Circa Central Park, a 12-story, 48-unit condo building. Positioned at the gateway to Harlem, its 1-bedroom apartments will start selling for about $1 million. Residents will have access to remote-controlled model boats for sailing on nearby Harlem Meer, and skateboards and bicycles will be included in the common charges. Ten of the 48 apartments will be set aside as affordable housing, to be sold through a lottery.

“The building is the conclusion of the story of trying to make the circle whole,” Anne Simmons, secretary of the Friends of Frederick Douglass Circle advocacy group, told The New York Times. While this retired public school art teacher is worried that the $1 million starting price will be steep for most residents of nearby Harlem and Manhattan Valley, she added, “For the neighborhood, this is a beginning.”

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Can God and a luxury condo tower co-exist?
That’s the questions on the minds of administrators, students and alumni at the Gothic campus of Union Theological Seminary in Morningside Heights, where The Wall Street Journal reports [paywall] that the school is considering selling 350,000 feet of air rights to a luxury condo developer to fund $100 million in renovations to building exteriors as well as electrical, mechanical and plumbing systems.
Rev. Dr. Serene Jones, the seminary’s president, said the proposed tower would be a “slender” building on the northern portion of the quadrangle at the center of the campus. The school is working with L&M Development Partners. Without specifying the building’s height, she said it would “respect” the 392-foot tower at nearby Riverside Church. Robert Von Ancken, an air rights expert, told the Journal he expected the building to be between 35 and 40 stories.
The idea of building luxury condos on the campus of a religious institution has met with stiff resistance. More than 200 students, alumni and others have signed a letter urging a “complete and immediate” scuttling of the plan. At a recent rally, one student carried a sign that declared “There are no luxury condos in the Kingdom of Heaven!”

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When I got word that my landlord was not going to renew my lease on the condo apartment I’d been renting for the past six years in Alphabet City, I got busy. My hunt brought me eventually to a lovely one-bedroom apartment with a terrace and knockout views of midtown and downtown Manhattan, for about the same rent I’d been paying for my apartment across the street from a housing project in Alphabet City. There was just one hitch: the building was a co-op, which meant, for the first time in my life, I would have to undergo a co-op’s vetting process for subletters.

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A 40-story residential and retail tower will fill the sky of Brooklyn Heights – if shareholders from a co-op that owns the site accept a big money proposal from developers.
 
Residents of 75 Henry Street, a prime 33-story co-op with 370 units, received a letter this week from their board outlining the development plan that includes demolition of the Park Plaza Diner (a neighborhood institution) and a row of retail stores that sit on the co-op’s property.
 
According to the letter, the low-rise restaurant and retail buildings would be replaced by a 40-story residential condominium and new retail spaces that would dwarf neighboring buildings.

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Nosy neighbors rejoice: BuzzBuzzHome has just made it easier to get the scoop on the new construction in your neighborhood.

BrickUnderground reports that the map "lets you search by listings or by neighborhood (the better to find out area stats like price per square foot), as well as by filters like price, rental versus sale, number of bedrooms, and so on." Be honest -- you could learn about that new condo tower through press releases like everyone else, but isn't it more fun to poke around yourself? 

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When you’re dealing in real estate, you learn to wait. The folks at Lyco Investment, the company that owned 260 Bowery, a property between East Houston and Prince Streets, have been on hold since 2008 when they bought the former tenement building. Now their patience has been rewarded, reports the Commercial Observer. According to Brian Segall of RKF, the company that was hired seven years ago to sell the three-story building at 260: “…with the continued evolution of the Bowery, [we] decided to wait for the market to mature before finally moving forward.” Maturation has apparently arrived: Premier Equities has purchased the site for $10 million on November 18 and plans to build an eight-story luxury condominium on the site. Says Segall: “The boom of activity on the Bowery and Lower East Side, with the string of recent investments, new retailers, hotels and cultural institutions entering the market, made this the right opportunity for both the seller and the buyer.”

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It's no surprise to see New York City real estate media tripping over themselves to report on the latest new super tall buildings every week – we're guilty of it, too. In a constantly-changing city, residents want to know what's going on in their neighborhood. Now, even National Geographic is getting in on it.

The national publication released an interactive map showcasing the "New New York City Skyline" on their website. "Before 2004, Manhattan was home to 28 skyscrapers 700 feet and taller. Since then, an additional 13 have been built, 15 are under construction, and 19 are proposed—47 more in all. These additions are rapidly—and radically—changing the skyline," explains the introduction. Readers then have the opportunity to view a 3-D map that shows how downtown and midtown Manhattan skylines will change in the not-to-distant future.

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Some would-be apartment owners are missing the good old days of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. According to DNAinfo, a city-run affordable housing program that can transform low-income renters to apartment owners is going nowhere under Mayor Bill de Blasio. The Tenant Interim Lease (TIL) program, which was "designed to renovate city-owned buildings and train tenants to manage finances," and then offer residents the opportunity to buy their apartment, has seen a steep drop-off in successful conversions.

"In Manhattan, seven out of nearly 130 buildings in the ownership program have actually been become co-ops since 2012 … Many buildings have been in the program for decades, waiting for renovations that never come," reports DNAinfo. The biggest surge of activity came in 2011, when 18 buildings were converted. Since then, less than five buildings each year have converted, with 2013 hitting rock bottom with zero buildings converted. Tenants are frustrated, saying that "this program was geared to fail and they are succeeding." Given Mayor de Blasio's supposed efforts to increase affordable housing in New York, can you blame them?

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The board of directors at the Park Lane North co-op in Forest Hills, Queens, has been working mightily in recent years to improve the property.  They upgraded the elevators, redid the hallways, built a garden, got the finances in shape and, as a crowning glory, turned the roof into a spacious terrace.  It roosts 20 stories above Union Turnpike and the Jackie Robinson Parkway, affording sweeping views that include the Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn skylines.

But few people outside the building knew about these improvements.  They were among the best-kept secrets in town.

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Another day, another reason to look sideways at the booming luxury buildings in Manhattan. Advocacy group Climate Works for All released a report showing that New York's most expensive buildings are its least energy-efficient.

Curbed reports that the group "looked at the Forbes Billionaire List, then Business Insider's 20 Most Expensive Buildings in New York City list, and cross-referenced this information with the city's Energy Benchmarking data. They came up with a list of ten buildings, all of which scored an F in terms of energy efficiency." According to the group, buildings produce seventy percent of the city's emissions. But have no fear! The group also "provides suggestions for reducing these emissions, such as implementing zero net energy standards and passive house technologies."

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