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Douchebag Brokers(PropertyGrant)
Economy Grows 3.5 Percent in 4th Quarter(NYPost)
An Economic Migration Study (For The Birds?)(Matrix)
PLAZA'S SWEETS(TheSlatinReport)
City Sticks Thorn in Thor's Side; Hammer Coming?(Curbed)
Located on Manhattan’s premier townhouse block, this six-story limestone mansion has been well-preserved and meticulously restored. Built in 1902, designed by legendary architect John Duncan, this house is one of the most outstanding Beaux Arts residential buildings extant. It has a masterful façade, grand rooms, extraordinary ceiling heights, sweeping staircase, elaborate detail, unusual open garden views, and exceptional natural light.
http://www.sothebysrealty.com/PropertyDetails.aspxR=100014751&N=12+4294967275&No=3&PSeq=0Provenance of History $35,000,000; Midtown East New York, NY, United States Condo/Townhouse
“Some of the prognostications are rooted in 2006's drama. Economists pronounced the national housing boom officially over, fear dominated the headlines, and real estate professionals held their breath, waiting for a collapse.
But the sky didn't fall. The average price of a Manhattan apartment remained above $1 million, and fears of fire-sale prices for new luxury developments weren't realized. But developers see an oversupply of new condominiums flowing into an already saturated market in the first half of 2007. One predicted it will take years to absorb the condos on the market and in the pipeline. A new development marketer cautioned, "We are past the 'build it and they will come' era. That's over." But others are encouraged by bonus money spending, the less than 1 percent vacancy rate for rentals and still-low interest rates. One broker said, "the next six months are going to be phenomenal."
For commercial real estate, the picture is clearer. Hotel and retail real estate are particularly hot, and industry members are encouraged by soaring asking rates and dropping office vacancy rates, which fell to a five-year low in November. "The market hasn't been this tight since the second quarter of 2001," a broker said. Thanks to job growth and continuing rising rents, brokers see these trends holding in 2007.”
2007: A look ahead(TheRealDeal)
“A bizarre fight at a Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing yesterday, over three late 18th century Federal-style houses on Greenwich Street, pitted one of New York’s most prolific hotel builders against the owner of a topless bar.
Both claim to own 96 Greenwich St. and are waging that battle in state Supreme Court. The issue before Landmarks was preserving these rare examples of row houses once common in Lower Manhattan, buildings that famed New York Times architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable called “accidental and anonymous survivors of the city’s early years.”
Representatives for Sam Chang, whose McSam Hotel Group would like to demolish 96 Greenwich to make way for a 300-room four-star hotel, offered the LPC a deal.
Meanwhile, the lounge’s owner Robert Kramer — who made alterations to 96 Greenwich in the 1970s — claimed he would undo the changes and pay to preserve the other row houses also. ”
“The Metropolitan Transportation Authority faces surging costs that could force it to eliminate or postpone badly needed projects less than halfway through a five-year, $21 billion program to expand and improve its transit system. By one estimate, the program is now $1.4 billion over budget.
Among the projects in that program are renovations to subway and commuter train stations, maintenance of antiquated signal systems, and the purchase of hundreds of buses and subway cars, and many of the projects may be affected, officials indicated.
Much of the problem has been caused by a rapid increase in the cost of construction in New York City, as a result of rising prices for materials and the large number of new projects, which gives contractors the leverage to charge more. In many cases, fewer companies are bidding on projects and offers are coming in much higher than expected. ”
Pale blue and green are the perfect soothing colors for a frog-themed design.
Sweet & Spacious Murray Hill Gem: Move right into this generous 750+ square foot triple exposure home on a delightful tree-lined block. This perfect starter home features a fully renovated stainless steel and marble chef's kitchen and an immaculate marble bath. Charming prewar details include pristine hardwood floors, high ceilings and beautiful crown and base moldings.
Rooms: 3.5
Bedrooms: 1
Bathrooms: 1
Pet Friendly: Yes
Approx: SqFT: 800
http://www.prudentialelliman.com/Listings.aspx?ListingID=813703
“Caro called Moses “America’s greatest builder,” and perhaps the most distinctive service of the exhibition is to bring home the sheer scale of his achievement to a new audience. There are models of many Moses projects and exceptionally elegant color photographs, by Andrew Moore, showing the current state of those projects. The photographs are so beautiful that they make you yearn for a time when enhancing the public realm was a serious calling. Moses built the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, the Triborough Bridge, the Henry Hudson Parkway, the Henry Hudson Bridge, the Southern and Northern State Parkways, the Grand Central Parkway, the Cross Island Parkway, the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, the Throgs Neck Bridge, the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, the Long Island Expressway, the Meadowbrook Parkway, and the Saw Mill River Parkway. He built Jones Beach State Park (an early masterwork), Orchard Beach, the Niagara and St. Lawrence power projects, the New York Coliseum, and the 1964 World’s Fair. By his own count, Moses added six hundred and fifty-eight playgrounds and seventeen public swimming pools to the New York City park system. In Central Park, he added the Conservatory Garden, the Great Lawn, and the Zoo. He played a major role in the creation of Shea Stadium, Stuyvesant Town, Lenox Terrace, Park West Village, Lincoln Towers, Kips Bay Plaza, Washington Square Village, and Co-op City. At one point, Moses held twelve New York City and New York State positions simultaneously. He served under seven governors and five mayors, and a popular joke had it that Moses wasn’t working for them so much as they were serving under Moses.
Even more significant, perhaps, than Moses’s productivity is the fact that he was one of the first people to look at New York City not as an isolated urban zone but as the central element in a sprawling region. In the early nineteen-thirties, he would charter small planes and fly back and forth across the metropolitan area to get a better sense of regional patterns. His vision of New York was of an integrated system with an urban center, a suburban ring, and a series of huge public recreational areas, all connected by parkways. Although the Regional Plan Association had proposed looking at the metropolitan area that way in 1929, Moses was the only public official who both grasped regionalism as a concept and had the ability to do something about it—which meant not only transcending local politics but also figuring out ways to pay for huge projects. He did this by establishing a series of public authorities, which allowed him to issue public bonds at favorable rates while leaving him with nearly as much autonomy as he would have had if he were running a private corporation. He moved among his various offices via a fleet of limousines—the highway-builder never learned to drive. His home base was in the headquarters of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, a small building on Randall’s Island, nestled under the Triborough Bridge, where he held court in lavish offices that were hidden from public view.”
Rethinking Master Builder Robert Moses (In Three New Museum Exhibitions And A New Book) (New Yorker)
“The Bloomberg administration is now kicking in $205 million toward Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn - more than double the amount anticipated.
The mayor's preliminary 2008 budget revealed that the city's subsidy for the $4 billion project - which includes an NBA arena and 16 skyscrapers filled with residential and commercial space - has quietly risen from $100 million to $205 million.
John Gallagher, a spokesman for Mayor Bloomberg, said the extra city funds will be for infrastructure improvements that would be necessary whether or not Atlantic Yards is built. Some of the $205 million is also earmarked for property-acquisition expenses, records show.
"This project will create jobs, provide affordable housing and generate billions of dollars in tax revenue, and represents a solid investment of taxpayer resources," Gallagher said.
The state is putting in another $100 million in taxpayer funds for infrastructure upgrades along the 22-acre project's footprint in Prospect Heights and Fort Greene. ”
City Subsidy Of Atlantic Yards More Than Doubles, To $205 Million (NY Post)
In the fourth quarter of 2006, only 32 metro markets had 100 or more sales in the "starter luxury" category -- new and existing single-family homes costing between $750,000 and $1.25 million-down from 65 markets in 2005. Here's what's happened to the median prices of starter luxury homes in all of those 32 metro areas:
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“These are some of the results of an exclusive report done for The Wall Street Journal by the National Association of Home Builders. "The million-dollar market is slowing down," says NAHB's director of research, Gopal Ahluwalia, who conducted the analysis using information from First American Real Estate Solutions, a Santa Ana, Calif., data provider.
The report looked at sales of new and existing single-family homes costing between $750,000 and $1.25 million in the nation's top metro areas. In 2005's fourth quarter, 65 metro markets had 100 or more sales in that price range. A year later, that figure had dropped by more than half, to 32. And appreciation was generally lackluster. Nearly half of those 32 markets saw prices in this "starter luxury" market flatten or decline during the fourth quarter over the same period a year earlier, in some areas by as much as 7.2%. Overall, the median price of these 32 markets rose a modest 1.4%, to $890,000.
Nationally, median home prices during the same period fell 10%, to $225,000 from $250,000 the study showed. The National Association of Realtors, which tracks existing-home prices only and will release its fourth-quarter report Feb. 15, is projecting that overall median prices will drop just 3.9%, to $216,500, in the fourth quarter of 2006. (NAHB says its figures differ from those of NAR because they use different geographical boundaries for their metropolitan areas and include data from both new and existing homes.)”
Low-End of Luxury-Home Sector Shows Some Signs of Chill(REJ)
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