On Tuesday, the Landmarks Preservation Commission took another step towards clearing its formerly 95-item backlog of sites calendared pre-2010. The commission designated seven properties in two boroughs – Staten Island and Manhattan. There was also a non-backlog designation.
Back in March, a rendering was revealed of Columbia University’s three-story, 55,980-square-foot University Forum and Academic Conference Center at 3205 Broadway, located on a triangular block bound by West 125th and 129th streets and Broadway, in the Manhattanville section of Harlem. At the time, excavation work was underway at the site, but now foundation work has commenced, Harlem+Bespoke reports. The structure will feature a café, an information center, offices and meeting rooms, and two auditoriums. The building is the part of the Columbia’s greater Manhattanville campus, which, when fully built out, will span 17 acres and roughly a dozen buildings. Renzo Piano Building Workshop is the design architect and Dattner Architects is the architect of record. Completion is expected in 2018.
As we have reported, the Landmarks Preservation Commission is in the process of dealing with the backlog of 95 items that have been on its calendar since before 2010, some for decades. That process took a big step forward Tuesday, with 30 sites remaining on the calendar as priorities for designation vote by the end of 2016. Five sites were removed from the calendar for lack of merit.
The City’s Economic Development Corporation and Housing Preservation and Development have launched a request for proposals for the vacant, 7,000 square-foot development site located at 2321-2325 Third Avenue, in East Harlem between East 126th and 127th Streets, according to DNAinfo. The site boasts 70,000 square feet of commercial development rights and is located directly adjacent to the site of a planned 115,000 square-foot proton beam therapy center. The commercial project is just a small portion of the two-block mega-development dubbed E125. The blocks bounded by East 125th through 127th Streets and Second and Third Avenues will eventually be home to 1,000 residential units, up to 700,000 square feet of commercial space and at least 30,000 square feet of community space. 800 of the residential units will rent at below-market rates.
East Harlem MEC Center [The Real Deal]: Heron Real Estate is taking the legal battle to NY State Supreme Court over the condemnation of multiple properties on the block bound by East 125th and 126th streets, and…