Apple Store To Open in Grand Central Terminal

Apple has signed a ten year deal with New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority to open a huge Apple Store within Grand Central Terminal.

Apple will pay the MTA (Metropolitan Transit Association) $800,000 in rent annually for the station's north and northwest balconies, nearly three times as much rent as Charlie Palmer's Metrazur restaurant was paying. In ten years, Apple's rent will go up to a million dollars annually.

Apple will be paying to refurbish the space, and must work with New York's Landmarks Preservation Commission to get any changes to the interior of the city landmark approved. The store is expected to open in November in time for Christmas.

A new Midtown Manhattan Grand Central Terminal store, located at 42nd Street and Park Avenue, would capitalize on tourist and commuter traffic using the station. Apple's highest density of retail stores is already centered in Manhattan, where the company currently operates four stores: GM Building Fifth Ave location, an Upper West Side store on Broadway, a SoHo store, and one in the Meatpacking District on West 14th Street.

More info here: largest-apple-store-grand-central-terminal-in-the-big-apple

40 Riverside Boulevard - The Glassiest Tower

Courtesy of Goldstein Hill & West

 

The latest Riverside South Tower to be the glassiest reported Amanda Fung in Crain's New York Business.

40 Riverside Boulevard one of the last residential buildings at Riverside South will be considerably glassier than it's neighbors to the north according to the projects designers at Goldstein Hill & West Architects.

The 650,000-square-foot residential tower at 40 Riverside Blvd. will be 33-stories high and boast more glass than any of the other new buildings north of it according to Stephen Hill, a partner at Goldstein Hill & West Architects.  

"The new tower at 40 Riverside will have a stone base but transition into more glass as it rises, It will have an “appearance of a curtain wall.” “It will look cleaner, sleeker and more beautiful,” Mr. Hill told Crain's reporter Amanda Fung.

Mr. Hill has been involved in developing Riverside South since 1995, first under his former employer Costas Kondyllis & Partners and now under his own firm Goldstein Hill & West. To date, he has worked on 10 of the projects, most recently, helping developer Extell Development design residential towers The Rushmore, Aldyn and Ashley.

Back in November I reported in this blog Riverside Center Development Approved. Riverside Center, the final piece of the Riverside South community received city approval for Extell to build Riverside Center, a proposed 3.1 million-square-foot, mixed-use property consisting of five high-rise towers on the southern end of the site, between West 59th and West 61st streets. Riverside Center will provide the neighborhood with much needed infrastructure, amenities and open space including a new 150,000 square-foot school.

Rendering Riverside Center

Riverside Center will be built on an eight-acre parking lot and former rail yard. Riverside Center will be built directly south of The Aldyn, Extell's new 40 story luxury condominium and rental building, now selling on Riverside Boulevard.

contact me for available apartments

Midtown in Motion

Mayor Bloomberg and city officials unveiled a new, technology-based traffic management system that allows City traffic engineers to monitor and respond to Midtown Manhattan traffic conditions in real time, improving traffic flow on the city’s most congested streets.

The system, called Midtown in Motion, includes 100 microwave sensors, 32 traffic video cameras and E-ZPass readers at 23 intersections to measure traffic volumes, congestion and record vehicle travel times in the approximately 110-square block area bound by Second to Sixth Avenues and 42nd to 57th streets.

The combined data is transmitted wirelessly to the City’s Traffic Management Center in Long Island City, allowing engineers to quickly identify congestion choke points as they occur and remotely adjust Midtown traffic signal patterns to clear traffic jams. Turning lanes were also added to 53 intersections in Midtown as part of the project.

REBNY Residential Broker Survey Highlights

REBNY (Real Estate Board of New York) released it's 2nd Quarter Residential Broker Survey.

Full results of the survey are located at www.rebny.com.

Residential Survey Highlights 2Q11

· 77% of brokers reported closing rental transactions at or above asking rent. This is 16% more than last quarter.

· 13% more brokers reported closing rental transactions in 2Q11 than last quarter. And 4% more than 2Q10.

· In 2Q11 10% more brokers reported closing sales at or above asking price compared to what brokers reported 2Q10.

· 4% more brokers reported closing sales this quarter than last quarter.

· Of the brokers who responded 46% of them believe that this quarter was better than last quarter.

· Of the brokers who responded 38% expect next quarter to be better than this quarter.

· Of the brokers who responded 39% believe that the residential market will be the same next quarter as it was this quarter.

· 59% of brokers reported using Neighborhood names (ie DUMBO, FiDi, SoHo, etc…) when marketing their properties.

· 40% of brokers reported that they found clients more responsive to properties using neighborhood names compared to properties that did not use neighborhood names.

Make Higher Loan Limits Permanent?

Back in June, I reported that effective October 1, 2011 the temporary emergency legislation Congress enacted in 2008 that raised the limits on conforming loans in expensive housing markets like NYC (Manhattan) expires and is not expected to be extended. In October the amount will be lowered from $729,750 to $625,500 for a High Balance Conforming Loan.

In an article by Alan Zibel in today’s Wall Street Journal Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) is advocating making the current conforming loan limits permanent.

In most places across the country the loan amount is $417,000. In some high cost areas where the median home price exceeds the conforming limit (such as New York, Los Angeles, Boston etc.) this amount has been $729,750 since 2008. Loans that fall between $417,000 and $729,750 but are still eligible for government backing are referred to as high-balance conforming loans.

Real estate is local. Representative Frank is quoted in the Wall Street Journal saying:

“The same level can’t be right for the whole country. It would be an especially bad time economically to lower conforming limits.”

There is proposed legislation from Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Rep. Gary Miller (R-CA) that would permanently extend the current conforming loan limits. The bill is backed by the National Association of REALTORS and The National Association of Home Builders.

Republican lawmakers want to remove the government from housing finance altogether. The article in today's Journal indicates that a one year extension of the current limits is probably more likely than a permanent extension.

Whether enough members of the Republican - controlled house will support such a move, is an unknown. The chances of an extension passing hinges on how serious the Tea Party Republicans are on reducing the government’s involvement in mortgages.

Politics and real estate are both local. Location, location, location. Most members of the new Tea Party Republican - controlled congress primarily represent rural conservative districts with low cost housing.

2011/06/high-conforming-loan-limits-reduced

Second Quarter 2011 Manhattan Market Report

Market-wide pricing for all apartments grew at a steady rate from both Second Quarter 2010 and First Quarter 2011, largely due to price growth in the resale market. Resales have been strong, with median price up 9% and average price per square foot up 4% from one year ago.

Click the image above to download complete 2-Q market report:

Each market segment and neighborhood has it's own nuances. If you're thinking about buying or selling a home, or would like to discuss the market or this report please contact me.

NY Leads the Nation to Rising Home Prices

New York led a second consecutive month of U.S. housing price gains, according to the May Housing Price Index released by CoreLogic and reported by Adam Fusfeld in The Real Deal

Nationwide home prices rose slightly in May compared to April, but remained far below their levels a year ago. Including distressed sales, prices rose 0.8 percent compared to April, but were stuck at 7.4 percent less than May 2010.

Excluding distressed sales, the year-over-year decline was just 0.4 percent.  New York showed the strongest gain of any state in the country, as home prices rose 4.4 percent in May compared to 2010, and excluding distressed sales the increase was 6.1 percent. The New York-metro area also performed better than any other large urban area in the country over the last 12 months, as its 3 percent gain in housing prices was the only positive change in the country.

In Manhattan according to second quarter market reports just released  the market contnues to stabilize.

Manhattan Monthly Market Snapshot: June 2011