Staten Island has long been the city’s slowest-growing borough, but the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio is pushing it to develop more housing. Last Wednesday, the Department of City Planning organized a public forum on the mayor’s plan to rezone Bay Street, an industrial swath of Staten Island’s north shore, in order to encourage new apartments and retail.
The Berkeley Carroll School, formerly the Berkeley Institute, has been a growing presence in Park Slope, Brooklyn since the end of the 19th century. It will continue to grow, thanks to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which last Tuesday approved a rooftop addition to its campus.
Normally, when YIMBY hears about development in eastern Queens, it’s happening in Flushing or Jamaica. But over the weekend, we stumbled across permits for a new apartment building in Briarwood, a middle-class neighborhood wedged between Jamaica and Kew Gardens.
Construction is now wrapping on the transformative 27-unit conversion underway at the 10-story former office building at 11 Beach Street, in TriBeCa. YIMBY can now bring you a photo of the nearly completed project, courtesy of prolific photographer Tectonic. The apartments, which will be condominiums, should average a spacious 3,976 square feet apiece. They will range from three- to five-bedrooms, some of which will come in townhouse-style and penthouse configurations. Amenities include a fitness center, a children’s playroom, an inner courtyard, a landscaped roof deck, and storage space for 14 bikes. Some of the apartments will also feature their own pool. YIMBY revealed renderings of the BKSK Architects-designed project in 2014. Thomas Juul-Hansen is crafting the interiors and HFZ Capital is the developer. Occupancy can probably be expected in the coming months.
Excavation work is now underway for a mixed-use project on the long-vacant 4.97-acre brownfield site at 662-758 South 2nd Street, in the North Jersey city of Plainfield. That’s in Union County. Under development is a five-story, 90-unit residential building, dubbed The Muse at Grant Avenue, and a single-story, 44,000-square-foot commercial building that will be leased to ABC Supply Company, according to NJBIZ. The units will range from one- to three-bedrooms, and below-market rate units are also included. Amenities include a parking garage, a fitness center, and a community room. The commercial building will serve as a distribution facility, featuring a staging area and 4,000 square feet of accessory office space. J.G. Petrucci Co. Inc. and TD + Partners are the developers. Completion on ABC Supply’s facility is expected later this year, while occupancy of the residential building is scheduled in 2018. The project is the city’s largest mixed-use development in 40 years. The site is located one mile south of NJ Transit’s Plainfield station.
