On Tuesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio signed City Council bill Intro. 775-A. The bill imposes deadlines on the Landmarks Preservation Commission and gives additional power to property owners.
Billionaire Ronald Perelman has pledged to donate $75 million to resurrect plans for the World Trade Center‘s Performing Arts Center, to be located at 70 Vesey Street in the Financial District. That’s the patch of land bound by Vesey, Greenwich, and Fulton streets, once home of the WTC’s temporary PATH station. The three-to four-story, 80,000-square-foot complex, now dubbed the Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center, will eventually boast three theaters. They will each seat 499, 299, and 100 people, but will have the ability to be reconfigured into a single 1,200-seat theater, according to the New York Times. Brooklyn-based REX Associates is responsible for the design. Perelman’s donation will be combined with $100 million already awarded by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC). The project is reportedly expected to cost $240 million in total, although the the LMDC said last year it will cost no more than $200 million. Groundbreaking is set for 2018.
Excavation is well underway for the 35-story, 343-key Moxy hotel planned to rise at 105 West 28th Street, on the western side of Chelsea. A photo of the recent excavation work has been posted to the YIMBY Forums by JC_Heights. The 410-foot-tall tower will encompass 145,344 square feet. Hotel rooms will be located on the fourth through 32nd floors, while guest amenities will round out the building’s remaining space. Amenities include a fitness center, a food market on the ground floor, a lounge and meeting rooms on the second, two rear yard terraces, and a sky-lounge with a restaurant on the 34th floor. The Lightstone Group is developing, and Stonehill & Taylor Architects is behind the design. The project had been delayed because a tower of its size required air rights to be transferred from around the block.
Bronx-based property owner Joseph Zeolla has filed applications for two three-story, two-unit mixed-use buildings at 1228-1230 Prospect Avenue, in the West Bronx’s Longwood section. The southern building will measure 2,812 square feet, while the northern one will measure a slightly larger 3,026 square feet. Both will contain ground-floor retail space, measuring 1,372 square feet and 1,418 square feet, respectively, with the residential units located above. Across the entire project, the full-floor units should average 760 square feet apiece, indicative of rental apartments. Kenneth H. Koons’s Bronx-based architectural firm is the architect of record. The 46-foot-wide, 2,903-square-foot plot is currently vacant. The Intervale Avenue stop on the 2 and 5 trains is located four blocks away.
Property owner Joseph Mizrahi, doing business as an anonymous Brooklyn-based LLC, has filed applications for a three-story, three-unit residential building at 1803 East 16th Street, in northern Sheepshead Bay. The structure will measure 3,310 square feet and its full-floor residential units should average 828 square feet apiece. It’s not known if the apartments will be rentals or homes, but amenities include storage space on the cellar and a single off-street parking spot. Douglas Pulaski’s Brooklyn-based Bricolage Designs is the architect of record. The 20-foot-wide, 1,840-square-foot lot, located on the corner of Avenue R, is vacant. The Kings Highway stop on the B and Q trains is two blocks to the north.
