By Patrick Hedlund
In need of Advocacy Community members fighting a proposed sanitation garage on Spring St. in Hudson Square have reached out to the city’s public advocate and borough president in their quest to forestall the project that has raised local residents’ ire.
Richard Barrett of the Community Sanitation Steering Committee sent a letter to Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum’s office last week asking for her involvement, because, as the letter states, the city’s failure to properly inform the affected communities of the project constitutes “a derogation of public rights that requires [her] involvement.”
“Central to the issue is D.S.N.Y.’s insistence that the expanded garage and other facilities are ‘local’ versus ‘regional,’ ” the letter continues, “thereby limiting the area of analysis under Fair Share to 400 feet rather than the requisite half-mile radius and preempting the appropriate dialogue, review and consultation.”
Barrett also said he was heartened by his recent discussion with Borough President Scott Stringer, who the committee also hopes to enlist in the fight. Next on the list? Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Barrett acknowledged, but only after the ULURP review process begins.
By the way, we asked good old City Planning a few weeks ago whether the garage tower amounted to a regional facility and they dodged the question.
Closeout opening Discount retail chains more often close Downtown these days, but Lot Less Closeouts will take over nearly 15,000 square foot of space at 97 Chambers St. currently operated by discount department store Dee & Dee.
The new tenant signed a 10-year lease for the deal, which features both ground-floor and lower-level retail space. The New York and New Jersey retailer, which sells a host of name-brand closeout merchandise, currently operates another Lot Less Closeouts store Downtown at 299 Broadway near Duane St., said co-owner Nathan Cohen. The new tenant reportedly paid about $65 square feet for the space, which will open in April.
Dee & Dee owner Robert Dweck hesitated at speaking to Mixed Use about the deal, as he has “been doing business in the city for 50 years, and… never heard of Downtown Express.” Dweck wouldn’t have had to travel far to pick up a copy at nearby newsstands, but hopefully Cohen will take more of an interest in our 20-year-old publication and it’s exciting new real estate column.
Affordable FiDi Rental apartments in the Financial District, believe it or not, represent some of the cheapest going in Manhattan, with studios priced at a round $2,300 per month and one-bedrooms just over $3,000, according to a recent report by Platinum Properties.
Data from the residential brokerage firm’s year-end “FiDi Report” indicated that rents in the district averaged 15 to 35 percent lower than in neighborhoods like the West Village, Chelsea, Midtown, and the Upper East and West Sides. The report also predicted that luxury residential units would hit a high of 6,699 by the end of this year, climbing from 5,433 last year and 4,530 in 2006. The data also seems to skew toward single renters, with 41 percent of the nearly 900 leasing transactions surveyed made up of studios and 30 percent one-bedrooms. And with the influx of new residential units, vacancy rates came in at a sparse 1.8 percent last year after posting at 1.75 in ’06.
’beca balks Word from Community Board 1 is that the proprietors of the just-opened Duane Street Hotel at 130 Duane St. have voluntarily pulled their application for a liquor license after the community voiced reservations over the request.
C.B. 1 staffer Michael Levine informs Mixed Use that the board received a letter from the hotel rescinding its license application for its in-house restaurant, the cleverly named ’beca. He regarded the withdrawal as a positive sign of the developer wanting to work with the community in order to come to an amicable agreement.
The “Hersha Hotel” as Levine referred to it, was developed by hotelier Sam Chang, who has a dubious history with Downtown development.
Lower L.E.S. The South of Delancey New Business Advisory Committee was to hold its first informational meeting on Wednesday for business owners and residents in the Lower East Side’s expanding retail area. Working in conjunction with the L.E.S. Business Improvement District, the new group met to discuss strategies for enhancing the area’s retail landscape, said L.E.S. BID president Roberto Ragone. This begs the Mixed Use question of how long it will take for the area to establish a catchy nickname, because we’re thinking the increasingly used “BelDel” isn’t going to cut it.
Avella: You’re fired! Queens City Councilmember and mayoral wannabe Tony Avella blasted the Department of Buildings and its commissioner Patricia Lancaster following Monday’s Trump Soho condo-hotel disaster, calling for her resignation for the department’s failure to prevent the accident.
“D.O.B. is an agency in total chaos,” Avella charged in a statement released Tuesday. “D.O.B.’s main mission to ensure the safe and lawful use of buildings and properties under the building and zoning code has been allowed to be subverted into a mad dash for more construction — and construction at any cost. The blame has to fall on Commissioner Lancaster,” he stated.
Mixed Use thinks the declaration is befitting of a mayoral candidate, seeing as how bold statements such as these tend to draw the media spotlight. It does, however, seem to flow with Avella’s pro-preservation agenda, which has criticized the current administration’s development push.
Stu Loeser, Mayor Bloomberg’s chief spokesperson, told the Post that the Lancaster criticism is “ludicrous.”
Craigslist this ain’t A new realty Web site started specifically to fend off unscrupulous brokers has hit the ’Net with a crop of listings throughout the Village and its surrounding neighborhoods.
Flyrig.com, which launched in mid-December, offers users the ability to review apartment listings and rate brokers, as well as requiring those who list on the site to provide a valid real estate license and contact information.
The Web site also features an interactive Google-powered map, listings by specific Manhattan neighborhoods (as well as the boroughs), listings by individual brokers and their rankings by users.
The site currently touts 51 apartment listings throughout the Village, Chelsea and the Lower East, and hopes to have a total broker membership of 1,000 by the end of the month.
mixeduse@communitymediallc.com
