Long Island City luxury flophouse tower under new management

 

The Real Deal

 One co-living operator is out and another is in at a Long Island City rental complex.

Simon Baron Development announced that Common will take over operations for the co-living units at Alta, its 419-unit tower at 29-22 Northern Boulevard.

Until recently, those units were operated by Ollie, another co-living startup. But that company had a tumultuous year: In February 2020, its co-founders, brothers Andrew and Chris Bledsoe, left the company. And in December, yet another co-living startup, Starcity, acquired Ollie’s assets, which reportedly included its management contracts.

Matt Baron, president of Simon Baron, declined to elaborate on what had transpired since Starcity’s acquisition of Ollie’s assets. In a statement, he praised Common, which he said “has built up the reputation to successfully manage on behalf of institutional owners.”

Alta has both traditional apartments and 169 shared units. According to Alta’s website, rents for an Ollie-operated co-living unit started at $1,300, while traditional studios in the building start at around $2,700.

A Common spokesperson declined to comment on the building’s current occupancy rate, but said that the company aims to bring it above 90 percent.

Founded in 2015 in New York City, Common has expanded its reach beyond co-living in recent years. The company now operates about 900 units in New York — mostly shared units as well as some traditional apartments — with another 1,500 in the pipeline. The company said it expects to open more than 20,000 units across the U.S. in the next few years.

Last year, it added former New York City housing czar Alicia Glen to its board of directors and raised $50 million in a Series D funding round.

Church holds mass in honor of Mother Cabrini, the saint who won and got screwed out of the city's women's statue program

NY Post


More than 1,000 parishioners packed a Brooklyn church on Sunday to give Saint Frances Cabrini her dues — after the city passed her over for a statue, despite a groundswell of support.

The overflow crowd at Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary & St. Stephen church was the latest outcry from Catholics and Big Apple Italian-Americans after Cabrini was snubbed by First Lady Chirlane McCray’s “She Built NYC” statue program.

Cabrini, an Italian immigrant who founded 67 institutions to help the needy, finished first in a citywide poll asking who should get an effigy — but McCray and former Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen nonetheless decided not to grant her the honor.

“That’s a disgrace,” said Connie Gessler, who said Cabrini taught her grandmother. “Why did they have an election if they weren’t going to give one to the person with the most votes? How would she like it if we didn’t make her husband mayor if he got the most votes.”

The mass came after hundreds of Cabrini supporters gathered at Mother Cabrini Park on President Street and to the church.

NY Post 


Brooklyn Catholics are waging a holy war against First Lady Chirlane McCray.

After McCray enraged the faithful by ignoring the public’s top choice for her women’s statue program — Mother Frances Cabrini, the patron saint of immigrants — the Brooklyn Diocese has launched a campaign to build its own monument to her.

“Mother Cabrini recently received the most votes in the ‘She Built NYC’ competition, which aims to build more statues honoring women,” the Diocese wrote in a press release. “But despite earning this top ranking, a public statue honoring her life is not being planned.”

The flock felt compelled to act after The Post revealed McCray’s statue snub, according to Monsignor 
David Cassato of the Italian Apostolate, which is leading the fundraising effort along with the diocese.

“There was a story in the New York Post about Mother Cabrini, that she did not receive a recognition of a statue, and that’s what precipitated our honoring her,” said Cassato, who plans to donate $1,000 to the cause.

Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio noted Cabrini is deserving of the “She Built” honor because she literally helped build New York City.

“Her work to establish orphanages, schools, and a hospital, along with her commitment to immigrants, absolutely should be recognized,” he said. “The failure to honor Mother Cabrini with a public statue would be an affront to many New Yorkers, especially Italian-Americans, who see her as most deserving.”

McCray, meanwhile, insisted through a spokeswoman that she is not “anti-Catholic.”

“To claim that the First Lady is anti-Catholic is a falsehood and outrageous,” said spokewoman Jaclyn Rothenberg.

“She was invited to speak at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and has worked with Catholic Charities on a variety of mental health issues. Every one of the monuments for She Built go through the same process and the decision-making on this one was no different.”

Cabrini was public’s top choice for a statue, garnering 219 nominations, but she, along with two ohter top-5 vote-getters — Emily Warren Roebling, who directed the completion of the Brooklyn Bridge, and Manhattan Music School founder Janet Schenck — were tossed in favor of more women of color and an LGBTQ activist.

The woman who finished in second place was journalist and author Jane Jacobs. So it makes sense why her and Mother Cabrini were blown off by the craven phony first lady/co-mayor and the neoliberal developer crony and fixer Alicia Glen. Because if they were alive they would be excoriating the policies affecting the affordable housing and homeless crisis those two elitist women are complicit with.

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3 City Council hearings on Amazon

From Metro:

The New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson still has a lot of questions about what exactly will happen when Amazon HQ2 comes to Queens, and in a search for answers, the Council will host three hearings about the closed-door deal that lured the tech giant here.

At the New York City Council Amazon hearings, council members will question city officials and Amazon executives about the negotiations made in the bid for HQ2.

Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen, Economic Development Corp. President James Patchett and Amazon executives have been invited to the hearings, Corey’s office told the Wall Street Journal.

There will be three hearings in total, with the first oversight hearing scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 12 at City Hall. That hearing will be through the Economic Development Committee to look at the specific Amazon HQ2 in Queens site and how the deal between the company and the city played out.

How NYCHA became de Blasio's biggest problem

From Politico:

On the same day the scandal-scarred New York City Housing Authority was publicly acknowledging that it had violated a series of federal standards over the past year, the two city officials charged with overseeing it were occupied with other matters.

Mayor Bill de Blasio was rolling out his latest plan to raise money for his national political ambitions, and Alicia Glen, the deputy mayor who oversees housing, was discussing her proposal to build more statues of women across New York City on "The Brian Lehrer Show."

The juxtaposition highlighted what has become clear since de Blasio took office in 2014: Decaying buildings that house some 400,000 New Yorkers have rarely topped the priority list, and the administration is only now beginning to embrace policies that could have made a difference years ago.

Through a review of City Hall decisions and interviews with more than three dozen current and former government officials, politicians and people who work in the affordable housing industry — many of whom wished to remain anonymous to speak freely about a controversial subject — a picture emerged of a government conflicted over how to handle an agency with entrenched problems that call for an implausible increase in federal funding.

In de Blasio, NYCHA is overseen by a cautious politician, unwilling to challenge unions over work rules that impact building maintenance and leery of upsetting tenants concerned with private development on public land. Glen has presented different challenges: She declined to incorporate public housing into her affordable housing plan, rendering it less urgent and less subsidized, sources said. And where the mayor has acknowledged some ownership of NYCHA, despite its structure as a quasi-federal entity, she publicly distanced herself — a characterization she strongly disputes.

De Blasio campaigned on a promise of attending to those he believed former Mayor Michael Bloomberg ignored. Few embody that population better than public housing residents — who are predominantly black, Hispanic and financially struggling — yet they remain among the most disadvantaged in de Blasio’s New York.

NYCHA’s problems have now become unignorable.

Two acres of tweeding at Willets Point

From Willets Point United:

A new video released by Willets Point United demands that the de Blasio administration act before a December 2018 contractual deadline, to protect taxpayers’ interests by reclaiming two acres of Willets Point property which the Bloomberg administration gave to Queens Development Group.

In the video (below), Willets Point property owner Irene Prestigiacomo explains the give-away of the two acres to Queens Development Group; the comprehensive development project which the property was supposed to facilitate; the court decision that effectively prevents that project from proceeding; the contractual provision that allows the City to take back the property under present circumstances; the lack of action by the de Blasio administration thus far to reclaim the property; and City officials’ fiduciary responsibility to taxpayers to do so before the deadline lapses.

Ms. Prestigiacomo asks (06:38): "As corrupt as this City sometimes can be, have we really reached the point where a developer can keep public property worth tens of millions, without delivering any of the project that was the basis for it to receive the property in the first place?"

It's all so convenient

From the NY Post:

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s $300,000 debt to his outside law firm is starting to cast a huge shadow over his staff’s decisions.

As The Post reports Tuesday, opponents of plans to expand the Frick Museum have gone to court, claiming in part that the Frick’s use of the firm — Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel — to represent it before the city creates a conflict of interest.

They’re right: Frick hired Kramer Levin to push its plans before the Board of Standards and Appeals and the Landmarks Preservation Commission. But the mayor chooses their members, and they’re all surely aware that he owes the firm 300 grand.

The BSA will also decide Tuesday whether to OK a 64-story East Side apartment tower. Who’s repping its developer, Jonathan Kalikow? Yep: Kramer Levin.

The firm reportedly lobbied two key mayoral aides, Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen and City Planning Commissioner Marisa Lago, to let the building reach its planned 64-story height — and the planning commission obliged.

The City Council later nixed that decision, but the BSA will now decide whether enough of the tower was built by then to shield it from the council’s action.

Even if de Blasio hasn’t tried to pay off his debt with political favors, his debt creates an appearance that the firm will be treated well by the city. What company lets a client not pay a bill (or even work out a payment plan, as de Blasio has yet to do) unless it’s getting something in return?

Development plan for Sunnyside to be crafted this summer

From Crains:

The de Blasio administration and Amtrak will begin crafting a development plan for Sunnyside Yard in Queens this summer, city and Amtrak officials will announce today.

The master planning team will be led by Vishaan Chakrabarti's architecture firm, Practice for Architecture and Urbanism, which was first reported by Crain's in March.

"This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for civic groups, public officials and residents to create a vision for their borough," Alicia Glen, Housing and Urban Development deputy mayor, said in a statement.

The city has carved out a position within the Economic Development Corp. to oversee the process and announced a steering committee composed of roughly two dozen local and citywide stakeholders to provide input. Last year a city study found that about 80% of the 180-acre yard could be decked over and covered with 24,000 apartments, along with schools, parks and other infrastructure, at a cost of $19 billion. The master planning process is expected to take around two years and will come up with a more specific blueprint of what could be constructed.

BQX is a bust

From Politico:

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan for a streetcar along the Brooklyn and Queens waterfront may not pay for itself after all, according to an internal City Hall memo.

A confidential memo sent by the administration’s “BQX Project Team” to Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen in February says that the “successful implementation” of the $2.5 billion, 16-mile Brooklyn Queens Connector “faces several serious challenges,” including its financing model.

Since de Blasio unveiled the proposal in his February 2016 State of the City address, critics have questioned why the mayor would consider funding a developer-driven streetcar through already gentrified neighborhoods, rather than putting more capital behind another of his ideas, a subway extension into working class neighborhoods along Utica Avenue.

The administration has consistently argued that the BQX project can pay for itself, since the city can capture a piece of the rising property values that would be spurred by the creation of the streetcar. It’s a financing model known as “value capture.”

The February memo acquired by POLITICO New York suggests that the city’s confidence in the streetcar’s ability to pay for itself may be wavering.

Among the “four serious challenges” listed in the memo is the following: “Value Capture not providing sufficient revenue to fund the entire project as originally stated.”

In part, that's because, as the memo also notes, it's really expensive to move and rehabilitate the water, gas and sewer mains that lie along the streetcar’s proposed path between Sunset Park and Astoria.

Landlords given subsidies are eviction leaders

From DNA Info:

Much of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s affordable housing plan hinges on the preservation of existing affordable units.

But advocates worry that some landlords who get city subsidies to preserve affordable housing are the very same landlords who have the highest rates attempting to evict tenants from rent stabilized homes — and are therefore contributing to the loss of affordable housing.

One of the prime examples, they say, is A&E Real Estate Holdings.

A&E, which is believed to be the fifth biggest landlord in the city, inked a $201 million deal in 2015 to buy Harlem’s Riverton complex and pledged to keep its nearly 1,000 units affordable over the next 30-plus years in exchange for $100 million worth of tax breaks and incentives from the city, according to reports.

James Patchett, the incoming head of the city’s Economic Development Corporation who previously served as chief of staff to Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen, the mayor's point person for affordable housing, recently highlighted that deal, which he brokered, as a source of pride in reaching the administration’s housing goals.

But A&E was also responsible for filing more than 2,230 evictions cases between January 2013 and June 2015, according to an analysis by Rentlogic, a rental listings platform that aims to empower tenants by using open source data to grade landlords on things like vermin infestations, mold problems and construction violations.

BDB allowing developers to double-dip

From Crains:

In a change from last year, the de Blasio administration will let some residential developers double or even triple-dip into subsidy pools by using the same group of affordable apartments to qualify for a variety of programs—a practice it initially pledged to eliminate.

The pivot came to light as details of two housing programs were released in recent weeks. First, in late June the state legislature took a cue from the mayor and passed preliminary reforms to a property tax exemption called 421-a, requiring developers to set aside 25% to 30% of apartments in new buildings as affordable housing.

Then last Friday, the administration discussed the specifics of a new proposal called mandatory inclusionary zoning. The policy, which must be approved by the City Council, would set strict new affordability rules for any property that is rezoned, whether through a neighborhood-wide initiative or an individual property owner's request. In those situations, developers must also set aside up to 30% of all new condo or rental buildings as affordable.

The administration had initially envisioned developers meeting the requirements for these two programs separately, drawing a hard line against “double dipping” into multiple subsidy pools, which it believed limited the creation of low-cost units. In other words, affordable apartments built to satisfy inclusionary zoning requirements couldn’t also be used to meet 421-a benchmarks.

“If you want the tax exemption, you will have to do more," Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development Alicia Glen told Crain’s in September, when the programs were still in their conceptual phases.

But the policies unveiled since then show a different approach.

DeBlasio likes things dense

From Crains:

The city Department of City Planning has been studying 12 to 15 neighborhoods across the five boroughs that are "ripe for increased density," said Alicia Glen, New York City's deputy mayor for housing and economic development at a Crain's real estate conference on Tuesday. She also noted that she expects to see buildings to start stemming from the administration's rezonings by the end of 2015. Each neighborhood development will be extensively studied, and each will take four or five years to complete, according to Ms. Glen.

In terms of how much of the new developments will be required to be affordable under the city's new mandatory inclusive zoning plan, she predicted there would be no hard and fast rule.

"It's going to be neighborhood by neighborhood," Ms. Glen said. "There is no magic wand that we'll wave and everybody has to build 20% or 30% affordable housing."

She pointed to East New York and central Brooklyn as two areas that would likely be targeted for heightened development. In the case of Central Brooklyn the deputy mayor pointed out that it is significantly less dense today than it was for most of the 20th century, which means that it already has the transit capabilities and infrastructure in place to support increased numbers of residents. The administration's mandatory inclusionary zoning rules will also be driven by neighborhood needs, she said.