Eliot Brown

These days, Bob Lieber works late, is gaining weight, took no vacation this summer, and has no time off in sight.

The bustle comes as the 54-year-old deputy mayor for economic development is busy pushing, pulling and dragging a set of major Bloomberg-backed development projects toward execution, including three top ones characterized not by the invisible hand of the free market so often espoused by the mayor, but by a more heavy government hand.

Though Mr. Bloomberg is no laissez faire diehard by any means, the three projects—the revitalization of Coney Island; the redevelopment of the industry-heavy Willets Point area by Shea Stadium; and the creation of up to 5,000 units of mostly middle-income housing at Hunter’s Point South by Long Island City—seem to have far more city involvement and restrictions than those typical of the economic development agenda of the self-described fiscally conservative mayor.  read more »

A majority of the City Council signed a letter firmly opposing the Bloomberg administration's proposed redevelopment plan for Willets Point today, demanding more commitments to below-market rate housing and the creation of a broad relocation plan for the existing workers and employers. The letter, signed by 30 members of the Council, marks the planned 61-acre redevelopment by Shea Stadium with additional uncertainty as it moves nearer to the end of the city's seven-month public approval process [here's the letter as a Word file].

The Council members wrote that they were in "absolute opposition to the current Willets Point Development Plan," a troubling statement for the Bloomberg administration, which needs City Council approval for its plan.  read more »

Borough President Scott Stringer has endorsed the city's proposed rezoning of the Lower East Side, giving a boost to a plan that would allow for more residential development while adding restrictions to other types, including dorms.

His endorsement of the plan, issued today, comes as the City Planning Commission gears up for a mega-hearing Wednesday, with throngs of community members expected to deliver testimony on proposed rezonings of the Lower East Side, the planned middle income-intensive Hunters Point South development near Long Island City, and the proposed redevelopment of Willets Point by Shea Stadium.

The Lower East Side rezoning cuts back on a density bonus given to "community facilities," which include dorms and buildings with medical offices and other uses, while allowing developers in parts of the neighborhood to build bigger if they include below-market rate housing.  read more »

Ever since he left the city for Bloomberg LP in January, there's a fair bit of chatter among government and real estate types about former Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff's continued role in the Bloomberg administration—just how much does he say to current city officials, and what is he saying?

The answer to those questions, it turns out, is not public information.

Back in May, we did a Freedom of Information request that normally allows the public access to e-mails and other correspondence between public officials and outside parties. But now the city's counsel has denied our FOIL request, saying that every e-mail we requested (between Mr.  read more »

No Willets Point protests this afternoon.

The main Willets Point landowners group had planned a big truck rally at the Mets-Pirates game, planning to stop traffic as the contest came to a close, but now per an advisory, the group has canceled the event due to rain.

The organization, the Willets Point Industry and Realty Association, planned the protest as the City Planning Commission is slated to hold a hearing on the planned Queens redevelopment Wednesday, part of a mega-hearing that includes the proposed rezonings of the Lower East Side and the planned middle-income development in Queens at Hunters Point South. The 61-acre Willets Point slated for redevelopment sits across the street from the Mets' new stadium, Citi Field.

The landowners group said via email that it would reschedule the protest.

With at least eight years left before a set of new rail tunnels under the Hudson River are scheduled to be built and functioning, developer Sam Chang has already begun to reap benefits from the project. That's because the voracious builder of cookie-cutter hotels bought a $24 million West Side parking lot last November—a lot that just happened to be the same site the Port Authority needs in order to build the more than $7 billion project, called Access to the Region's Core (ARC).

Since then, the number of developers and landlords buying any city property has fallen off a cliff amid an impossible financing market, and brokers report that the bulk of sales that do happen have noticeably lower prices.  read more »

It’s been 23 years since the Upper West Side first gasped at Donald Trump’s plans for a series of soaring towers that would contain 7,600 apartments and a 150-story headquarters for NBC on the 75-acre Penn Central rail yards.

The battle that followed was an epic one—Mr. Trump this week recalled it as a “war to the death”—with politicians making and breaking careers on the issue. The project, first dubbed Television City, then Trump City, and ultimately Riverside South, underwent a series of permutations and eventually was scaled back and approved, gradually rising in an undulating row of apartment towers just east of the West Side Highway.  read more »

A major engineering firm retained for numerous jobs at the World Trade Center site is in talks to acquire a company run by the Port Authority commissioner most closely involved with the site’s redevelopment.

The commissioner, Anthony Sartor, chairs the Port Authority’s World Trade Center subcommittee and is president of KeySpan Services, which controls Paulus, Sokolowski & Sartor, an engineering firm that is a subsidiary of National Grid. Engineering and architectural giant STV Incorporated, which has contracts with the Port Authority for the Freedom Tower and the multibillion-dollar PATH hub, is exploring a potential acquisition of Mr. Sartor’s company, known as PS&S.  read more »

Governor Paterson said today that his administration has asked the developers of the planned redevelopment of Pennsylvania Station to come back with a new plan, showing the first public sign of life in the project in months.

In a Q&A on WCBS radio, Mr. Paterson was asked about the status of the long-delayed project, known as Moynihan Station.

"We have asked the developers of the potential Moynihan Station to come back to us with another plan that particularly features the subject we've been talking about today--transportation," Mr. Paterson said. "Already we have addressed with them the dwindling supply of revenues that we as the state can put into the plan, and we're expecting an answer form them within a week or two.  read more »

The planned new Brooklyn basketball arena for the Nets now may not be ready until 2011, according to developer Forest City Ratner, as the company acknowledges that the time to build the structure may take it past its current completion goal of calendar year 2010.

The news was first spotted by Norman Oder at his encyclopedic watchdog blog Atlantic Yards Report, where he put up part of a transcript from a Forest City conference in June [corrected]. In the conference, Forest City chairman Bruce Ratner said the company hoped to start construction on the arena by the end of this year, and would take two and a half years to finish.  read more »

Six weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear their federal lawsuit, landowners fighting the use of eminent domain for the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn have filed another suit, this time in state court.

Opposition group Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn put out a release today announcing the lawsuit, filed Friday, which claims the development was approved to benefit a private developer (Bruce Ratner) as opposed to benefit the public (which would justify the use of eminent domain), among other charges.

"Far from emerging from a legitimate democratic process where the public interest is identified and articulated," the suit says, "the Project is the product of a developer's dream-and a conscious effort to bypass City procedures mandating meaningful local review, planning, democratic oversight and community input.  read more »

The Whitney Museum of American Art is selling five townhouses by its Upper East Side museum, Crain's is reporting. The sale of the buildings, which are on 74th and 75th streets, come after the museum scuttled plans for an expansion in the area, and settled on building a new museum at the base of the High Line in the meatpacking district.

Expected price for the quintet? Around $60 million, says Crain's.

We've received a bit of feedback about a story this week on the Access to the Region's Core project, a $7.6 billion (at least) pair of New Jersey Transit rail tunnels slated for under the Hudson River—mostly criticisms of the project as currently planned.

The route of the tunnels has drawn criticism from many transportation advocates and some elected officials, particularly over the failure of the project to connect to tracks in Pennsylvania Station and the lack of a connection with Grand Central. Advocates have also criticized the depth of the station platforms under 34th Street, which would be about 150 feet below the street and require high-speed escalators to reach the top, though New Jersey Transit has dismissed the alternatives as far too costly.  read more »

Expect changes ahead in the renderings of Related Companies' planned $15 billion West Side rail yards development: The developer has brought on Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates to lead the landscape design, tapping a design firm widely known for its work on public parks, including the planned Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Related was designated the developer of the 26-acre site by the Javits Center in May and is expected to sign a contract with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the owner of the yards, in the fall.

Related's decision to bring on the design firm represents a shift from the bidding process, when it had West 8 lead the landscape architecture for its proposal.  read more »

Facing a lengthy approval process and a wary community board, developer General Growth Properties is bringing its campaign to redevelop South Street Seaport to the streets, as it unveiled a storefront exhibit on the seaport this morning.

For the exhibit, "Seaport Past & Future," General Growth brought on architect and writer James Sanders to trace the area's rich, dynamic history through five separate displays of the seaport at different time periods. The suggestion seemed to be that the seaport has always been marked by change, and the developer's plan is only part of an evolution, as opposed to a strong break from the past.  read more »

As expected, Queens Borough President Helen Marshall on Wednesday gave her conditional endorsement of the Bloomberg administration's plan to redevelop Willets Point, the 61-acre industrial area by Shea Stadium.

"There is no doubt that the existing businesses and people who work there provide valuable services and goods," she wrote. "However these activities are no longer compatible or appropriate to the progress of the communities and institutions that have grown around Willets Point."

Her endorsement [PDF] comes as part of the city's seven-month public approval process for a rezoning of the area, which requires approval from the City Council by November.  read more »

As the economy sours, ever-rising construction costs seem to be an in-vogue subject: Last night, the New York Building Congress released a report on the topic; the Manhattan Institute put out recommendations for controlling cost escalations earlier this month; and, on Monday, the Bloomberg administration announced a set of initiatives to lower costs of city projects.

The basic problem--costs have been going up at least 10 percent annually for the past few years--doesn't seem to have any easy solutions, as the reports (both of which involved consultation with the same firm, Urbanomics) recommended a broad array of changes that could lower costs to varying degrees.  read more »

As the Bush administration ends and area governments confront daunting budget gaps, what’s being called the nation’s most important public transportation project, a massive New Jersey Transit tunnel planned under the Hudson River, faces significant hurdles to funding and construction. Delays could send its already $7.6 billion price tag soaring.

Known as Access to the Region’s Core (ARC), it is the largest individual transportation project in the New York area by dollars, and would double the railroad’s capacity, allowing for 80,000 more riders daily, with a new river crossing and a fresh set of platforms by Pennsylvania Station.  read more »

The governing board of the Port Authority will increase its oversight of World Trade Center development, as board chairman Anthony Coscia is calling for new monthly meetings devoted to monitoring progress at the site.

Based on a memo he sent to the other board members today, the meetings will allow for monthly updates on cost and schedules, drawing a sharp contrast with years past (the first revision of dates and cost since 2006 is slated to be delivered in September).

The new meetings, to be held near the site, "will create an opportunity for the Board to give staff more policy direction regarding the rebuilding effort," Mr.  read more »

With the city's fiscal future looking bleak in the coming years, city Comptroller Bill Thompson is pushing at today's meeting of the Financial Control Board for a rainy day fund for the city's budget, in order to better balance the bad times with the good.

Following up on his report issued yesterday, the city's chief elected fiscal official highlighted in prepared testimony the rising debt burden of the city, a pot of tens of billions of dollars that has swelled as the Bloomberg administration has pushed economic development projects and modernization of crumbling infrastructure.

The result to the budget: A whole lot more city money going to debt service as revenues fall.  read more »

As expected, the Port Authority last week approved the land deal with St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church to allow the Port to use the church's Ground Zero land and build a vehicle security center below.

The bi-state agency agreed to give the church $20 million ($10 million is supposed to come from JPMorgan Chase for its planned adjacent building, though we'll see if that tower ever happens), along with up to $40 million for infrastructure. The church will get a significantly larger lot than it had prior to September 11, 2001, at 8,100 square feet.

Release below.  read more »

Extell Development is in talks with discount bulk retailer Costco to occupy a large underground store as part of a new 3.3 million-square-foot development of mostly residential buildings on the Upper West Side.

Extell, led by Gary Barnett, is seeking to move forward on developing the last parcels of Riverside South, the 55-acre swath of Upper West Side land known as Trump City when Donald Trump first started planning the complex in the 1980s. The company's plans for the final parcels between 59th and 61st streets would need approval of the City Council and City Planning Commission, as the firm is seeking to change the initial restrictions to allow for more density and different uses (the original development planned for a commercial tower for NBC at the site).  read more »

The NYPD will oversee security at the new World Trade Center, as the city and the Port Authority have reached an agreement on the structure of a security plan at the 16-acre site.

The agreement, announced today, leaves NYPD in charge of security at the vast majority of the site, a role the Port Authority Police Department currently has (the move has angered members of the Port Authority police). The Port Authority would control security at the PATH hub at the site, but the NYPD would have access to that space, according to a memorandum of understanding between the city and the Port Authority made public today.  read more »

The Port Authority at its board meeting this afternoon is taking a look at three possible designs for the planned tower over its bus terminal, with the firms of Richard Rogers, Cesar Pelli and Kohn Pedersen Fox all submitting plans.

Steve Roth's Vornado, in the hunt for an anchor tenant, is the developer for the tower, which would sit across the street from the Renzo Piano-designed New York Times building.

Pelli Clarke Pelli designed the Bloomberg tower on Lexington Avenue for Vornado; Mr. Rogers' firm designed the planned Tower 3 at the World Trade Center; and KPF was signed on for JPMorgan Chase's now-scuttled new investment banking headquarters (with a notable goiter for trading floors) downtown.

Images below.  read more »

Vornado Realty Trust CEO Steve Roth is considering a design by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Richard Rogers for his planned office tower atop the Port Authority Bus terminal, a Port Authority official confirmed.

The design by Mr. Rogers, along with two other designs (New York-based SHoP was said to be working on a design for the tower at one point), is expected to be presented at today's Port Authority board meeting.

Mr. Rogers, whose works include the planned Tower 3 at the World Trade Center and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, recently withdrew from a nearby project: the now scuttled Javits Center expansion.

We'll (hopefully) have more after the meeting at 1:30.

The Port Authority has reached a tentative land deal with St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church at ground zero, removing a hurdle to the construction of a vehicle security center in the new World Trade Center, according to a Port Authority official. The deal is expected to come before the agency's board for approval today.

A dispute over the church's land, which sits south of Liberty Street across from ground zero, was highlighted in a Port Authority report last month as one of more than a dozen potential or impending major hurdles at the World Trade Center site.

In the agreement, the Port Authority would pay $20 million to the church, giving it a more than 8,000-square-foot site on which to build.  read more »

For more than three years, Nicholas Sprayregen has kept his word to Columbia University.

The largest private landowner in the footprint of the university’s planned 17-acre West Harlem expansion, he has vowed time and again to fight the university’s attempts to oust him, so long as the school threatens the use of eminent domain.

Now, as the bulk of the area’s politicians have endorsed the expansion, community opposition has gone from a boil to a simmer and all but one other private-property owner has agreed to sell to the university, the fight’s final chapter is poised to be strictly a legal one between two parties: the university and Mr.  read more »

Location: How long has your family been out here?

Mr. Fodera: We’re just about an 80-year-old company; we’ve always operated in the city of New York, but we’ve been in Willets Point in this facility for almost 35 years.

Why’d you move out to Willets?

It’s tremendous as far as highway access, as well as the labor force, and it put us very close to our customers.

You do food distribution?

Bakery ingredient distribution. My clients start from the mom-and-pop stores right up to the biggest bakeries in the city.  read more »

Representative Anthony Weiner, a mayoral hopeful, gave his support for a string of large development projects in the city today, saying they're important in a time of economic uncertainty.

"New York needs to continue to grow–I'm a pro-development guy," he said, speaking at a Crain's breakfast. "If you look at downtown, you look at West Side, you look at Penn Station, you look at Ratner, you look at these things–I think that you're going to see that I'm going to be advocating. I want them to be successful, particularly in this time of slow economic growth."  read more »

Then, hitting on his

The city's Economic Development Corporation announced today it made a deal with a fourth landowner at Willets Point, the 61-acre site by Shea Stadium the Bloomberg administration wants to redevelop.

The landowner, Carlos Canal, agreed to sell his 4,000-square-foot property if the city completes a rezoning of the area, a process that will come to a head in November when it is slated for a vote before the City Council.

The news comes five days after the main opposition group of landowners and businesses at the site, the Willets Point Industry and Realty Association, announced its group had grown by five businesses to 14 (one of the original 10 businesses agreed to sell his property to the city).  read more »

New York did a snapshot this week of Chris Whittle, the bowtie-wearing former Esquire owner who is planning to build a new 220,000-square-foot school on West 57th Street with developer Douglas Durst.

The article says the school is still now planned for 2011 (up from 2010 when we spoke with Mr. Whittle in February), and construction doesn't seem imminent. Durst spokesman Jordan Barowitz said the school, Nations Academy, had yet to receive approval from the city's Board of Standards and Appeals. And based on Mr. Whittle's plan from a few months ago, Nations will then seek get approval for tax-free financing for the construction.

It seems the second blight study commissioned for Columbia University's planned West Harlem expansion did not come at extra cost to the state, as the Empire State Development Corporation's spokesman confirmed today that Columbia picked up the report's $217,000 tab.

The state's major development agency, ESDC, yesterday declared the 17-acre expansion footprint as blighted, a necessary step before using eminent domain. Prior to yesterday, it was unclear whether a blight study the state commissioned would have run into legal obstacles, as a state appellate court earlier in the week was critical of the state's use of contractor AKRF to complete the study.  read more »

The state's main development agency, the Empire State Development Corporation, kicked off the public process for eminent domain for Columbia University's 17-acre West Harlem expansion today, starting a final chapter in the approvals for the contentious $7 billion initiative.

In announcing the process, ESDC President Avi Schick unveiled two unexpected nuggets of news surrounding the plan: yet another concession package from Columbia and a second blight study.

The concessions, which come on top of two multi-million dollar concession packages negotiated last year with Borough President Scott Stringer and then with the other local elected officials and members of the community, included $20 million for community development initiatives, $1 million for CUNY, a mobile dental center, and undergraduate scholarships.  read more »

Portfolio has a profile of Related Companies chairman Steve Ross today, and along with it, a video of the magazine's real estate forum at the Four Seasons last month, where Joanne Lipman, Portfolio's editor, queried—somewhat awkwardly, at times—Mr. Ross, Vornado chairman Steve Roth, and Elliman superbroker Dolly Lenz.

(For more on Mr. Ross, we have an unrelated story on Related and a West Side tower in today's print edition.)

Fundraising may have gone slower than before for City Council Speaker Christine Quinn lately amid the discretionary spending imbroglio, but she still hauled in a fair hunk of cash--more than $620,000--in the past six months, according to her campaign filing.

Of that amount, the bulk--$410,0000--came in the three months since the Post first revealed the Council's so-called "slush fund," which in turn led to day after day of headlines questioning various appropriations made by Council members.

A look at her intermediaries (known as bundlers) doing much of the fundraising suggests the traditional source: the real estate industry is still hard at work.  read more »

As the Bloomberg administration scrambles to get its development projects in the ground amid a slowing economy and a waning political term, two major planned initiatives the city has championed face a formidable hurdle: the Internal Revenue Service.

For the financing plan for the Atlantic Yards housing and sports arena complex in Brooklyn, and for one being considered for the planned middle-income-housing mega-complex at Hunter’s Point South in Queens, the city would need a favorable ruling from the I.R.S. or face substantially higher costs for both projects. Negative rulings from the federal agency could result in tens of millions of dollars in added costs, putting up new obstacles to major developments that have already seen ambitions scaled back.  read more »

Stephen Ross apparently is rather intent on getting a development bonus for a new far West Side tower.

Mr. Ross, chairman of development giant the Related Companies, is seeking, once again, to fill the base of a planned 58-story, 1.2 million-square-foot hotel and residential building on 42nd Street and 10th Avenue with a theater, thereby taking advantage of a zoning code bonus that allows for a bigger tower overhead.

Related, which met opposition in 2005 when it tried to bring Cirque du Soleil to the tower, is now in advanced talks with the Signature Theater Company to be the main theatrical tenant in the tower, according to people familiar with discussions.  read more »

The major landowner fighting Columbia University's expansion, Nick Sprayregen, today came out victorious over the state's Empire State Development Corporation today in an appellate court ruling on a case involving the Freedom of Information Law.

The case concerned the release of documents and correspondences between the state and its contractor AKRF, mostly surrounding the creation of a blight study (slated for release Thursday).

Mr. Sprayregen, represented by attorney Norman Siegel, defeated the state at the first level last year, with the court offering criticism that the same contractor, AKRF, was used for both the blight study and the environmental review.  read more »

Just when news started to slow for the summer on the development front, New York's Empire State Development Corporation dropped this bombshell in the agenda for its monthly meeting [PDF]: Columbia University "Land Use Improvement Project and Civic Project Findings."

Translation: the state will unveil the blight study, the first step in the use of eminent domain for Columbia's 17-acre West Harlem site.

The one major holdout left in the footprint is Nick Sprayregen, owner of Tuck-It-Away Self-Storage, which has numerous properties in the area. Mr. Sprayregen has bankrolled much of the opposition to the project, particularly on the legal front, and has previously vowed to challenge the use of eminent domain.  read more »

The Related Companies has boosted the title (and workload, presumably) of Vishaan Chakrabarti, project manager for the Related Companies and Vornado Realty Trust on Moynihan Station.

Mr. Chakrabarti, formerly a senior vice president, has been named Executive Vice President of Design and Planning. He will continue to lead the Moynihan Station effort, according to a Related spokeswoman.

   read more »

The Sun today reported on the high salaries of members of the executive chamber in the Paterson administration, noting that 62 of the 176 staffers in the executive chamber have a salary of at least $100,000.

Well, we have one to add outside the chamber that caught our eye: Drew Warshaw, the 27-year-old new chief of staff to Port Authority executive director Chris Ward, takes in $168,012 annually. The previous Port Authority director, Tony Shorris, didn't have anyone with the title of chief of staff, but his "special executive assistant," Andy Rachlin, took in $99,000 a year.

Mr. Warshaw served as an aide in the Spitzer administration, working with Rich Baum, secretary to the Governor.

In his colorful response today to a Times story on the four rent-stabilized apartments he rents, Representative Charles Rangel said repeatedly (as captured in video by The Observer’s Azi Paybarah) that the below-market-rate apartments are not a gift (which would need to be reported per campaign finance law).

“If you’re paying the legal rent, and without the law, the rent could be higher, just what school did you go to that you could misinterpret that as a gift,” he said to the Times’ Jeremy Peters. “They didn’t give me anything, I’m paying the highest legal rent I can.”

Maybe.

Unanswered questions in this Rangel rent-stabilization saga-to-be are many, but based on New York’s arcane, sometimes-twisted rent-stabilization laws, here’s one thought of how the apartments could be construed as a gift:

Mr.  read more »