http://www.planNYC.org/ PlanNYC | New York City Planning Information Portal en-us ja3n@earthlink.net http://www.plannyc.org The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts has received nearly $800 million in pledges, almost two thirds of the funds needed for its $1.2 billion renovation which is scheduled to be completed in 2010. Many of the large pledges from banks and other financial institutions were received before the current credit issues. 2008-05-16 00:00:00 http://www.plannyc.org With the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) recently publicizing its inability to finish the Fulton Street Transit Center, some fear that the Second Avenue Subway project could end up not being completed either. The project has already begun construction in the Upper East Side, demolishing three miles worth of buildings, stores, and restaurants. The New York Post asserts that The MTA underestimated the cost for Phase 1, which was budgeted $4.34 billion in the capital-budget summary released in February. The newspaper also claims that the timeline for the project, with a 2013 completion date, is overly optimistic. It calls for action from Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Paterson to save the project. 2008-05-15 00:00:00 http://www.plannyc.org The Chief Executive for JP Morgan Chase said that moving its headquarters to their recently acquired Bear Sterns building in midtown would save the company about $3 billion because it would no longer need to construct a building in lower Manhattan at the World Trade Center site. A spokesperson for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey claims that the Lower Manhattan project is still on. 2008-05-15 00:00:00 http://www.plannyc.org At a rowdy public hearing on the city's plan to rezone parts of the Lower East Side and East Village, some residents of Chinatown claimed that the plans were discriminatory because areas of LES were left out of the plan. Another concern is affordable housing. The community has asked for 30% inclusionary zoning while the proposal only has 20% currently. 2008-05-14 00:00:00 http://www.plannyc.org In a decision by the State Supreme Court, the city will be allowed to proceed with reconstruction efforts on Union Square Park but will not be allowed to install fixtures or operate the proposed pavilion restaurant until a lawsuit opposing the restaurant is settled. The court has lifted some of the initial stop-work order and is allowing construction work to proceed. This will allow the city to move ahead with proposals to fix the playground. Another phase of the lawsuit begins on May 24th. 2008-05-14 00:00:00 http://www.plannyc.org Governor Paterson has endorsed Senator Chuck Schumer’s idea of putting the Port Authority in charge of the Moynihan Station project. Mayor Bloomberg has openly opposed this idea. Paterson has said he will weigh both sides in reaching a final decision. 2008-05-14 00:00:00 http://www.plannyc.org Governor Paterson admitted publicly on Wednesday for that there might not be sufficient money for several New York City projects including Moynihan Station, Hudson Yards and the Jacob Javits Center. New York City is suffering from a real estate slump that has affected several other cities recently. The governor suggested that it might be necessary to have “either an individual or a committee oversee all the structural development in those particular areas” in order to overcome delays and budget shortfalls. 2008-05-14 00:00:00 http://www.plannyc.org After plans for a 30-story glass tower atop 980 Madison were scuttled last year, the architect has redrawn plans, which include a much lower profile that the developer hopes will be more welcomed by neighbors. The new plans involve a bronze box-like structure that will sit directly on top of the existing building. The new design is significantly shorter, which means that it will not require a zoning variance, so the only approval needed is from the Landmarks Preservation Commission. New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff calls the new design “more polite and less original” than the first, and notes that the lower profile is “a calculated response to the bottom-line politics of building on the Upper East Side.” 2008-05-14 00:00:00 http://www.plannyc.org The Landmarks Preservation Commission unanimously approved the transfer of air rights from two landmarked sites to the 75-story building planned to be built next to MoMA. The skyscraper, which is designed by Jean Nouvel, will include condominiums and hotel rooms. Some residents have opposed the building because they believe it is too large and out of scale with the neighborhood. 2008-05-13 00:00:00 http://www.plannyc.org The Toll Brothers launched a website for their Gowanus development that will provide the community with updates about the project as it moves through the city’s public review process, the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP). The developer said that it hopes the new website, www.tollbrothersgowanus.com, will help foster a “continuing dialogue with the Gowanus community,” noting that neighbors can use the site to send in comments and concerns about the project. 2008-05-13 00:00:00 http://www.plannyc.org The Landmarks Preservation Commission unanimously approved the Noho Extension as a new historic district, covering 56 buildings new buildings in the two block span. This district is adjacent to two other historic districts in Noho and includes buildings from the late 19th and early 20th century. 2008-05-13 00:00:00 http://www.plannyc.org After the Hudson Railyards negotiations with Tishman Speyer fell through, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) reopened talks with the other developers who had originally submitted bids for the site. It is uncertain whether any of the other developers will match Tishman Speyer’s winning $1 billion bid. The runners-up, a partnership between the Durst Organization and Vornado Realty, expressed a continuing interest in the project, but originally bid just under $900 million for the site. The MTA needs to fill a $700 million hold in its capital budget that the original agreement was supposed to fill. The point of contention that broke down the agreement between the two was Tishman Speyer’s desire to only start paying the lease after rezoning was completed on the western side of the rail yards, a process that could take 3 years. 2008-05-13 00:00:00 http://www.plannyc.org Opponents of the City's plan to rezone parts of the Lower East Side protested both inside and outside a Community Board hearing on the plans on Monday. The plan will rezone 111 blocks and place building height limitations on new structures. Some believe that the height limitations exclude new developments in predominantly poor and minority neighborhoods and claim that the City is trying to push out minorities and lower-income residents. Some opponents claim that the City left them out of the rezoning process until it was too late to make any changes. The City denies these claims. If the plan goes through, the LES rezoning could be the third largest rezoning the City has undertaken. 2008-05-13 00:00:00 http://www.plannyc.org About 16 small businesses and non-profits are struggling to remain afloat following the extensive rezoning of Jamaica, Queens by the City last year. Many of these firms once leased space in a building that was owned by JP Morgan Chase until September of last year. As the rezoning process got underway in 2005, the businesses say that their landlord refused to negotiate new leases, opting to go month to month. They believe this was to make it easier to evict the tenants later on. The businesses blame this on the rezoning. 2008-05-13 00:00:00 http://www.plannyc.org In an effort to keep Goldman Sachs in Lower Manhattan after September 11th 2001, the City provided the banking firm significant incentives as well as $320 million in penalties if infrastructure, transit, and security plans were not in place for the area surrounding the former World Trade Center site by 2010. The city is now trying to work out a deal to avoid paying some of those fines, considering the delays the project has faced thus far. The deal given to Goldman Sachs has been criticized by many who see it as a major giveaway to a company that is not in need. Goldman Sachs contends that they wanted this clause in their agreement with the City so that the area did not become a perpetual construction site. 2008-05-13 00:00:00 http://www.plannyc.org According to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), the revived negotiations between itself and developer Tishman Speyer have failed. The MTA announced that it plans to reinstate negotiations with some of the other developers interested in building out the Hudson Yards project. 2008-05-13 00:00:00 http://www.plannyc.org In a recent filing with the SEC, Vornado Realty Trust, a fifty/fifty partner with the Related Companies in developing Moynihan Station, has spent roughly $34.2 million on the project since being named the developer in 2005. The nature of the filing and a $23 million write-off, signals that in financial terms, Vornado believes the deal to remake Penn Station is dead. 2008-05-13 00:00:00 http://www.plannyc.org Elected officials and New York City commuters were on board the first ferry trip connecting the Rockaways and Lower Manhattan. The service, run by the New York Water Taxi, also makes a stop in Brooklyn. Officials from New York Water Taxi are hoping to attract 300 commuters a day but in order for the line to make a profit, it will need nearly 700 riders per day. City officials are hoping to encourage commuters who normally make the trek to Lower Manhattan by car to use the ferry service, as opposed to those who are already taking the bus and subway. The ferry service could cut 20-30 minutes off the commute. 2008-05-13 00:00:00 http://www.plannyc.org Columbia's expansion is set to begin in Manhattanville, but three business owners, who own 10 percent of the land in the footprint of the expansion, have yet to strike a deal with the University to sell their properties. Community members are concerned that the State will deem the neighborhood blighted in order to allow the State to use eminent domain to acquire those properties. Columbia states they still hope to reach deals with these business owners. Opponents of the expansion believe that use of the State’s eminent domain power would be inappropriate because Columbia is a private institution. 2008-05-13 00:00:00 http://www.plannyc.org Following comments made by Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) about the future development on Manhattan's West Side, Mayor Mike Bloomberg warned the Senator that "we set the cities priorities – they don't come out of Washington." Schumer and Bloomberg disagree on what essential elements are needed to get the Hudson yards project back on track. Schumer contends that Moynihan Station should be the top project, while Bloomberg has emphasized the extension of the No. 7 Subway line. The elected officials also disagree on who should spearhead the Moynihan Station project – Schumer would like to see the port Authority in control and Bloomberg disagrees. 2008-05-12 00:00:00 http://www.plannyc.org In order to restrict out of scale development in the Lower East Side neighborhood, the City is proposing a rezoning to limit height to 8 stories throughout the majority of the area. As of now no restrictions are in place and developers are able to buy adjacent building lots' air rights allowing for larger scale development. The rezoning has reached the community board and if passed will go on to the borough president's office. 2008-05-12 00:00:00 http://www.plannyc.org After the Hudson Railyards negotiations between Tishman Speyer and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) broke down over the developer’s rezoning demands, the two parties have scheduled another meeting for Tuesday, May 13. Both parties hope that the project can continue to move forward as planned. 2008-05-12 00:00:00 http://www.plannyc.org Even in the face of an economic downtown, Senator Schumer would like to see the Port Authority take over the expansion and renovation of Penn Station. He believes one of the City’s priorities should be to provide more office space. Mayor Bloomberg disagreed, saying that the City should be in charge of its own development priorities, though he would welcome funding from the State for Moynihan Station. Bloomberg does not support the Port Authority taking over the Moynihan Station project due to delays the agency has faced in the World Trade Center redevelopment. 2008-05-12 00:00:00 http://www.plannyc.org Ikea announced that it will provide a free ferry service from Lower Manhattan to its new Red Hook location, in order to help mitigate community concerns over increased traffic. The new ferry will supplement the free shuttle buses Ikea is providing to the nearest subway stations as well as local MTA buses. The dock for the ferry will be located along the public esplanade Ikea also provided in exchange for development rights in the Red Hook community. 2008-05-12 00:00:00 http://www.plannyc.org Mayor Bloomberg met with representatives from Tishman Speyer in London on Friday and expressed optimism that the developer, selected in March as the winning bidder to redevelop the Hudson Railyards site, and the MTA could still work out a deal for the site. Negotiations failed last week when, according to the MTA, Tishman proposed postponing the closing of the deal until the West railyard site was rezoned, a process that will take at least 18 months. After giving the developer a day to reconsider, the MTA called off the deal on Thursday afternoon. Representatives from Tishman and the MTA are scheduled to meet again on Monday. 2008-05-10 00:00:00