Real Estate Market Around City Hall Park Heats Up

The real estate market around City Hall Park in lower Manhattan is heating up.  Is the Department of City Planning taking into consideration the shadows cast into the park caused by new developement?

Manhattan

As the real estate market in lower Manhattan heats up, hundreds of pricey new apartment projects are set to debut by 2016. The new developments will form a ring around City Hall Park, the often-overlooked green space running from Chambers to Barclay Sts, according to the New York Daily News.

Real estate pros have their eyes on the middle of lower Manhattan. 

“This area is becoming so relevant,” said Tara King-Brown, a broker at the Corcoran Group and a resident of the area. 

“As the neighborhood turns from a massive construction site into a real place where people live, the park will establish itself as a residential anchor — and not just a place where office workers go to eat their lunch.”  

City parks have long been a major draw for real estate developers, who crave views of green space and plenty of light and air. For years, developers have trampled one another for opportunities to build around Central Park, Gramercy Park and, more recently, Madison Square Park.

Now attention turns to City Hall Park, which has already had a small taste of new development in the form of Frank Gehry’s rippling steel tower at 8 Spruce St. and a glitzy new rental tower called the Lara at 113 Nassau St.  

But now, hundreds of new for-sale units, including 34 multimillion-dollar homes at the Woolworth Building and 68 at the stunning Beekman Residences at 5 Beekman St., are about to test the market for luxury homes in the heart of Manhattan’s civic center. 

Historically, this is where you’re more likely to run into an arraigned criminal, a politician, or both, than a billionaire oil mogul. 

“City Hall Park is the center of the new downtown,” said broker John Gomes of Douglas Elliman.  Prices are also slated to go through the roof as the hot market for luxury homes in the Financial District and Tribeca spills over into the civic center, which is the last lego block to be developed south of Canal St. Developers are expecting condo buyers to pay up to $110 million for a trophy penthouse in a neighborhood where the median sale price for a newly built condo was just $4.5 million this year. 

On the flip side, some experts are skeptical whether City Hall Park really holds the same cachet — or can help drive sales of high-dollar apartment prices like its counterparts uptown.

In recent years, the odds have certainly been stacked against the 9-acre park. But the history is rich and real. Dutch colonists grazed their livestock there. The green space even predates City Hall itself, the cornerstone for which wasn’t laid until 1803.  The park fell into disrepair by the late 1990s, then was given a major $35 million facelift in 1999 under Mayor Rudy Giuliani. The city installed a perimeter fence, reinstalled a historic central fountain and introduced beautiful bronze gas candelabras to light the park at night.  

 But the victory lap was cut short when 9/11 shut down lower Manhattan. A large chunk of the park remained closed for years after the terrorist attacks, making it virtually inaccessible to residents of the neighborhood. During that time, Mayor Michael Bloomberg cited security concerns surrounding City Hall.  

But Skip Blumberg, head of advocacy group Friends of City Hall Park, says the park is on the rise. There’s been a reopening of the northern segment in 2007 and the subsequent rebuilding of the World Trade Center site just a few blocks south.

Madison Square Park also had a renovation in 2000, right before it become a major destination for residential developers. That’s happening around City Hall Park now, too.  For his part, Blumberg is campaigning for more permanent seating areas in the park and for a new lawn on the plaza adjacent to Tweed Courthouse, the other large municipal building inside the park. 

Read More:

Center spotlight: Pricey apartments are on the rise around City Hall Park

New York Daily News - December 12, 2014 - By Katherine Clarke 

NYU, City, State Sued Over NYU's Massive 2031 Expansion Plan

Rendering of proposed  $ 6 billion NYU Greenwich Village expansion as envisioned when completed in 2031. On Monday eleven groups and Eleven individuals sued NYU, the City and State officers and agencies for approving the NYU’s 2031 expansion plan, known as the Sexton Plan. The suit was filed in New York County State Supreme Court. The suit asserts among other things that NYU's massive plan,  "illegally alienates parkland, illegally destroys historic resources, illegally ignores deed restrictions."

The suit asks the court to reverse the city’s approval.  The City Council rubber stamped the project in July.

"The city and state made a series of erroneous and irrational decisions to overhaul local zoning, alienate public parkland, and green-light NYU's project, despite the unanimous objection of the local Community Board, the affected communities, historic preservationists, and much of NYU's own faculty," said Randy Mastro, partner of the law firm Gibson Dunn and Crutcher, who represents the petitioners on a pro bono basis, in a statement.

Manhattan

Eleven Groups File Suit Against City for Illegally Approving NYU Sexton Expansion Plan for Greenwich Village; 

Alleges Violations of the Public Trust Doctrine, Illegal Manipulation of Restrictive Deeds, Destruction of Parkland, Playgrounds and Historic Preservation Site, Failure to Adequately Consider Environmental Impacts, and Failure to Adhere to an Open and Transparent Process

Today, NYU Faculty Against the Sexton Plan, Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, Historic Districts Council, Washington Square Village Tenants’ Association, East Village Community Coalition, Friends of Petrosino Square, LaGuardia Corner Gardens, Inc., Lower Manhattan Neighbors Organization, SoHo Alliance, Bowery Alliance of Neighbors, NoHo Neighborhood Association, and 11 individuals, announced that they filed an Article 78 lawsuit against several City and State officers and agencies for their unlawful approval of NYU’s 2031 expansion plan, known as the Sexton Plan. The suit was filed in New York County State Supreme Court.

The case challenges decisions by the City and the State to approve the massive Sexton Plan, a $6 billion, almost two million square foot construction plan in the heart of historic Greenwich Village, for the convenience of NYU.  The petition alleges that the plan illegally alienates parkland, illegally destroys historic resources, illegally ignores deed restrictions, and, as government decision-makers readily admit, is going to cause severe, unmitigated environmental impacts on NYU’s Village neighbors, including the several thousand who reside at the site and will now be forced to live in a construction zone for the next two decades. 

The lawsuit alleges that government decision-makers, including both the City Planning Commission and the NYC Council, largely deferred to NYU’s wishes and even illegally turned over public land to facilitate NYU’s project, despite less intrusive alternatives and available mitigation measures that would have alleviated the inevitable hardships here.  The petition also claims that government decision-makers compounded their substantive errors by conducting a decision-making process with a preordained outcome that lacked the transparency required by law under ULURP and effectively denied the public meaningful input.  The government decision-makers refused even to consider the adverse impacts on the most affected group—the NYU faculty, 40 percent of whom reside at the site—rendering their ultimate decisions irrational, and arbitrary and capricious, as a matter of law. 

Thirty-seven NYU departments and three NYU schools, including the Stern School of Business, have passed resolutions opposing the project. 

“The CPC and the City Council bought NYU’s premise that they needed to expand in its core in the Village community in order to become a so-called world class university.  But the fact is that NYU uses buildings all over NYC.  NYU was never required by the City to prove that the expansion was really needed in the Village.  We, the faculty, know that this bloated expansion   isn’t necessary and that’s why so many of us have voted to oppose it.  The Sexton Plan has nothing to do with education; it’s a land grab and nothing more, and the City failed to hold NYU accountable,” said Mark Crispin Miller, NYU Professor of Media and Culture and a member of NYU Faculty Against the Sexton Plan.

NYU’s enormous project will add almost two million square feet of new space—about half of it dedicated to such nonacademic purposes as a performing arts center, gymnasium, housing and retail establishments—to a two square block area in an already-congested Greenwich Village.  It is, as the petition notes, “a project so massive in scale, disproportionate to the surrounding area, and out-of-sync with the neighborhood that it threatens to overwhelm one of New York City’s crown jewels, historic Greenwich Village.”

“The City and State made a series of erroneous and irrational decisions to overhaul local zoning, alienate public parkland, and green-light NYU’s project, despite the unanimous objection of the local Community Board, the affected communities, historic preservationists, and much of NYU’s own faculty.  Indeed, in bending over backwards to accommodate NYU’s wishes, these government decision-makers have abrogated their legal responsibility to protect communities from the very harms being inflicted here. We hope that the Court will agree with us and put a stop to this project,” said Randy Mastro, partner in the international law firm Gibson Dunn and Crutcher, who are representing the petitioners on a pro bono basis.

In essence, the suit asks the Court to reverse the City’s approval by enjoining the City from removing parkland or making any other changes asked for by the Sexton Plan and by also enjoining NYU from starting any construction.

The approved Sexton Plan would destroy a number of the Village’s cherished green spaces, and parkland, including a children’s playground, one of the oldest community gardens in the City and would remove 300 irreplaceable mature trees.  Under the law, public parkland cannot be “alienated” without prior approval by the State legislature.

“In approving the NYU 2031 plan, the City failed to follow the law, consider public input, and serve the best interests of the people of New York City.  Dire negative potential environmental and financial impacts of the plan were ignored, as were feasible alternatives which would have been greener and more beneficial long-term to the Village, the City as a whole, and even the University.  We look forward to a fair and impartial review of this plan, which the people of the City of New York were entitled to under the law, but which was not given to us by City officials during the public approval process,” said Andrew Berman, Executive Director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.

“If NYU is allowed to build on the designed open space of Washington Square Village, it would set a damaging precedent for modern architectural development throughout New York City,” said Simeon Bankoff, Executive Director of the Historic Districts Council.  “Removing the park from the plan corrupts the progressive ideals of the complex and transforms an urban oasis into a concrete jungle,” he added.

“The NYU plan will alter the ambiance of SoHo in the small streets that are the heart of the cast iron historic district, said Robert Riccobono, vice president of SoHo Alliance.  “Dignified and stylish furniture and clothing stores will give way to the mass market drugstores and food shops that serve college communities.  As the neighborhood becomes homogenized, more of the unique character of the City will suffer.”

Stamped copies of the full petition, excerpts from the petition and affidavits in support of the petition are available upon request.

Additional quotes from petitioners:

“The massive height, bulk and density of the Sexton Plan will have a detrimental effect on the surrounding communities.  As a result of the growing influx of NYU students, the Bowery has experienced growing dormitory construction, escalation of real estate values creating secondary displacement of residents and small businesses and a burgeoning bar/restaurant scene with its attendant congestion that is having a negative impact on the quality of life of the residents on the Bowery.  The Sexton Plan will encourage more development which will destroy the special historic build on the Bowery,” said Jean Standish, Treasurer of Bowery Alliance of Neighbors, one of the petitioners.

“We live in one of the most park-starved neighborhoods in New York City, one that has become unbearably overdeveloped and overcrowded.  The green open spaces in the “Super Blocks,” the community garden, the mature deciduous trees, especially the magnificent Sasaki Garden, are refuges of tranquility we cannot live without,” said Georgette Fleischer, Founder and President of Friends of Petrosino Square.

“The Sexton Plan gives NYU permission to demolish LaGuardia Corner Garden, the longest running community garden in New York City, during construction.  The City Council and the New York City Parks Department did not secure the garden’s future with any preservation or mitigation guarantees.  This administration has rolled back protections that community garden organizations have worked for decade to establish, resulting in the senseless demolition of these environmentally valuable open spaces,” said Ellen Horan, Vice Chair of LaGuardia Corner Gardens.

“LMNO(P) spent nearly a decade to create a public playground under the jurisdiction of the Parks Department with the understanding that this public space on City-owned land would exist for future generations.  Giving NYU these publicly owned lands is a betrayal of the public interest, and slaps the many citizen volunteers who have dedicated years of hours to improve our communities,” said Enid Braun, President, Lower Manhattan Neighbors’ Organization.

“The massive expansion of facilities and student population at the core will amplify pressures that NYU's insatiable demand for growth has placed on housing and on local businesses in the East Village for more than a decade,” said Sara Romanoski, Managing Director, East Village Community Coalition.

Read More:

City Is Sued Over Approval of N.Y.U. Expansion Plan

The Associated Press Via The New York Times - September 25, 2012

11 groups sue city to block NYU expansion 

Crains New York - September 25, 2012- By Amanda Fung 

Purple Pulverizers: NYU Faculty, Preservationists Sue University 

Over Greenwich Village Expansion

NY Observer - September 25, 2012 - By Matt Chaban 

NYU, City, State Sued Over NYU's Giant 2031 Expansion Plan
gothamist - September 25, 2012 -  By Garth Johnston 

N.Y.U.’s Plan to Expand Is Approved by Council

New York Times - July 25, 2012 -  By Joseph Berger 

NYU's Mega-Expansion Plan Presses Forward With Park/Open Space Destruction

A Walk In The Park - January 28, 2012 

NYU Expansion Plan Presses Forward With Park Destruction

A Walk In The Park - September 17, 2011 

Residents Fight NYU Over Parkland Destruction

A Walk In The Park -  November 1, 2010 

Next Step Approved For Future Acquisition Of High Line Above 30th Street

MANHATTAN

The Department of City Planning announced that it has certified the City's application for approval of future acquisition of the High Line above 30th Street according to The Friends of the High Line.  This is a crucial step in realizing the group's dream of fully preserving the High Line at the West Side Rail Yards.

This certification kicks off the seven-month Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), during which there will be several opportunities for public input. The group encourages the public to come out and show your support for the High Line's preservation, as you have so many times before. They are pushing for the City to take ownership of the High Line and ensure that its future is determined by the public. 

Though today's announcement does not guarantee preservation of the High Line, the City's move toward High Line acquisition is a major positive step towards achieving our ultimate goals: full preservation of the historic structure north of 30th Street, including the 10th Avenue Spur, and completion of the High Line project all the way to 34th Street. 

Read More:

City Takes Big Step Toward the High Line's Preservation at the Rail Yards

January 27, 2010 - The Highline.org

 

Press Release 

CONTACT:  

 

Friends of the High Line 

Katie Lorah – (212) 206-9922 / katie@thehighline.org 

  JANUARY 27, 2010             FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

 

ADVOCATES MARK ANOTHER BIG STEP TOWARDS THE HIGH LINE'S 

PRESERVATION AT THE RAIL YARDS 

  

Department of City Planning kicks off public review process to authorize City acquisition of the 

High Line’s remaining section. 

  

Supporters of the High Line celebrated today as the Department of City Planning certified an 

application to begin the public review process to allow the City acquire the final section of the 

elevated structure. This announcement marks the beginning of the City’s Uniform Land Use 

Review Procedure (ULURP), a seven-month process of community and government review. After 

the ULURP is complete, the City will be authorized to move forward with acquisition of the historic 

High Line structure as it runs the perimeter of the West Side Rail Yards. 

 

The certification of this application, submitted by the Department of Parks & Recreation, is a 

critical step by the Bloomberg administration toward the preservation of the historic High Line 

structure, and the extension of the popular elevated park north of 30th Street.  

 

Today’s announcement follows another major step for the High Line at the Rail Yards, taken in 

December, 2009, when the City approved the Western Rail Yards Rezoning. The rezoning 

contains requirements that the High Line west of 11th Avenue be used for public open space, as 

well as stipulations for the ways in which future buildings can interact with the High Line. Taken 

together, these two actions pave the way for integrating the historic structure into the future 

development at the Rail Yards. 

 

The non-profit Friends of the High Line has been advocating for full preservation of the historic 

High Line structure north of 30th Street since the planning process for the redevelopment of this 

site began several years ago. The group has worked along with the administration of Mayor 

Michael R. Bloomberg, the MTA and the Empire State Development Corporation, the state 

agencies that own the underlying land, and The Related Companies, the site’s developer, to 

ensure that the High Line is included in plans for the site. 

 

The High Line south of 30th Street is already owned by the City of New York, and is under the 

jurisdiction of the Department of Parks & Recreation. This section was donated by CSX 

Transportation, Inc. in 2005, following a public review process similar to the one beginning today. 

The southernmost part of the structure opened in June, 2009 as a public park.   

 

Once the ULURP process is complete, the City will be authorized to acquire the High Line north 

of 30th Street.  

 

On receiving word of the announcement, Friends of the High Line’s Chairman John Alschuler 

said, “We are extremely pleased that the City is taking this important first step towards ownership 

of the High Line’s iconic Rail Yards section. Through continued community advocacy, and 

continued collaboration with the City, the MTA, and the Related Companies, we are confident that 

this historic structure will be transformed into a great public space to be treasured by generations 

to come.” 

 

About the High Line 

The High Line is a public park built on a 1.5-mile elevated freight rail structure. Originally 

constructed in the 1930s to deliver meat and agricultural goods to the industrial West Side, the 

High Line connects the west side neighborhoods of the Meatpacking District, West Chelsea, and 

Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen. The section below 30th Street is owned by the City of New York, and is 

operated under the jurisdiction of the Department of Parks & Recreation, in partnership with the 

non-profit Friends of the High Line. 

 

####### 

Last Remaining Section of High Line Under City Review

The city is considering taking ownership of the northern portion of the High Line, according to NY 1 News

Currently, the city already owns the portion south of 30th Street. That part of the elevated rail yard has been transformed into a public park.

The Department of City Planning is now starting the public review process necessary for the city to take ownership of the entire length of the High Line, which extends to the West Side Rail Yards.

Advocacy group Friends of the High Line says the move would guarantee the preservation of the park in the future.

City Mulls Full Ownership Of High Line

NY 1 - Ocotober 19, 2009