By Gus Delaporte 5/07 7:15pm

MSG

MSG

City Planning Proposes 15-Year Limit for MSG Special Permit

At a meeting yesterday, the City Planning Commission proposed a 15-year term for Madison Square Garden’s application for a special permit to operate an arena of more than 2,500 seats. The proposal, some way short of MSG’s request the permit be renewed in perpetuity, is still a small victory over previous suggestions of a 10-year limit.

Opponents of Madison Square Garden’s request point to the need for a renovated Penn Station, a process which is inhibited by the arena’s location. A term limit, they say, provides ample time for both Madison Square Garden to find a new location and for plans for a new Penn Station to be drawn up. Read More

By Billy Gray 3/19 11:00am

Lower Manhattan 2013

Renderings of Fulton Center

Next Stop, Lower Manhattan: Fulton Center Transit Hub Chugs Forward

As Grand Central Terminal celebrates its centennial year as a crown of Midtown, the Fulton Center transit hub is being born three miles south.

It’s been a rocky delivery. Since 2004, when the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s project—then known as the Fulton Street Transit Center—was introduced, its budget has ballooned from $750 million to $1.4 billion. And the completion date has been pushed back from 2007 to June of 2014.

Despite troubles common to a project of this scope, M.T.A. officials are optimistic that Fulton Center will transform commuting in lower Manhattan when it ultimately connects 11 previously separated subways lines and installs a pedestrian link to Santiago Calatrava’s World Trade Center PATH station, whose cost certain estimates put at $3.7 billion.

“Fulton Center is designed to create a focal point and an entranceway to Downtown,” said Aaron Donovan, a media liaison at the M.T.A. “Like Grand Central, it’s something everyone can gravitate toward. And lower Manhattan has not had that sort of landmark structure in the past.” Read More

By Al Barbarino 2/06 12:06pm

Controversies

Moinian

Group Grades The Moinian Group With a Big Fat “F”

Things could get rowdy when a consortium of elected officials including City Council Speaker Christine Quinn rallies near City Hall this afternoon to issue a report card to Joe Moinian’s The Moinian Group for alleged failings as a real estate developer and landlord.

The report card grades the developer – with letter grade “F” across the board – on tenant relations, safety, financial stability, vendor relations and the creation of good jobs.

“It’s going to be rowdy – we’re expecting hundreds of people,” said Jessica Ramos, a spokesperson for Build Up NYC, one of the groups spearheading the effort.  “We want to create public support and awareness for them to be a responsible developer and build buildings with good jobs that actually help the economy.” Read More

By Stephen Kleege 10/23/12 7:45am

Lower Manhattan

City Hall submarket.

Sale of City Hall Buildings Snagged

A city proposal to sell three lower Manhattan buildings, potentially converting 750,000 square feet of outmoded office space into luxury housing or hotels, has run into objections from community representatives in the City Hall area, who argue that the plan should have included provisions for a school, community center or affordable housing.

The City Council’s subcommittee on planning, dispositions and concessions plans a hearing next week on the disposal of the properties at 22 Reade Street and 49-51 Chambers Street. Disposition of the third building in the package, at 346 Broadway, was approved in 1998. Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the sale in January as part of a drive to make the city more efficient by consolidating its office spaces. Read More

By Eliot Brown 9/01/10 3:10pm

Stringer Gives Extell Thumbs Down on Riverside Center

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer yesterday delivered his official thoughts on the planned Riverside Center housing development on the Upper West Side, recommending against the proposed 2,500-apartment project (with conditions).

The development is the last piece of Riverside South, the giant string of apartment towers along the West Side Highway that were started by Donald Read More

By Eliot Brown 5/19/10 9:50pm

SKYSCRAPERS

Stringer Likes Vornado’s Hotel Penn Tower

Steve Roth’s plan for what would be the city’s third tallest tower, across from Penn Station on the site of the current Hotel Pennsylvania, just got a boost, as Borough President Scott Stringer on Wednesday gave his conditional approval for the proposal.

The planned 1,200-foot skyscraper—which is theoretical in that it would not likely be Read More

By Reid Pillifant 11/03/09 4:40pm

A Stuy-Town Simile

It looks like the elected officials who represent Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village are bracing for the complex to default, and they’re already reminding the complex’s lenders–Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–about how the lenders themselves needed a bit of help last year.

In a letter to Fannie and Freddie, the electeds–U.S. Representative Carolyn Read More

By Dana Rubinstein 10/13/09 7:10pm

How Keen Is Manhattan Valley?

An unexpected alliance between a powerful developer and a neighborhood retirement home is causing an uproar in the Manhattan Valley section of the famously ornery Upper West Side.

Enigmatic developer Joseph Chetrit and Jewish Home Lifecare, which has a campus at 120 West 106th Street, between Amsterdam and Columbus avenues, have decided to swap properties. Read More