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ABNY Celebrates Record Growth of New York City Tech Industry
ABNY – Association for a Better New York
May 10, 2012
Bill Rudin and Peter Meyer
Two weeks ago, we celebrated New York City’s growing tech sector at the 6th annual Spirit of ABNY awards! We were thrilled to honor several leaders who are currently playing a significant role in advancing our city’s tech sector (see picture below). Special thanks to all of you who joined us and supported this year’s Spirit of ABNY event!
ABNY is thrilled to keep the proverbial fire burning bright, as we joined the Center for an Urban Future yesterday in releasing the most comprehensive report to date about New York City’s tech sector. The report, entitled “New Tech City”, was written and published by the Center for Urban Future and was made possible through the support of ABNY and AT&T New York.
We hope this research spurs public debate about how we all can continue to support this thriving industry and further diversify our economy and remain competitive in the global market.
The full report can be viewed here.
The NYC Digital Startup Index can be viewed here.
A one page infographic about the report can be viewed here.
ABNY is proud to support the Center for an Urban Future’s groundbreaking work on New York’s tech sector.
Honorees at the 2012 Spirit of ABNY Awards
Back row from left to right: Paul Hurley, CEO, ideeli; W. Kent Fuchs, Cornell University Provost; Dawn Barber, Co-Founder, NY Tech Meet-Up; Bill Rudin, Chairman, ABNY; Seth Pinsky, President, NYCEDC; Alan Patricof, Founder and Managing Director, Greycroft LLC; Jennifer Hensley, Executive Director, ABNY. Front row: Harry Heymann, Head of Engineering, foursquare)
Dressing Up Fulton Mall With Style
The Wall Street Journal
May 9, 2012
BY LAURA KUSISTO
A rendering of Century 21's proposed City Point store in Brooklyn.
The popular discount retailer would provide a high-profile anchor for the City Point development, a mix of mostly retail and apartments that is one of the largest projects under way in Brooklyn. It would be the first new traditional department store to open in Downtown Brooklyn since the area slid into decline in the 1970s.
By landing Century 21, developers said they would be able to break ground this summer on the bulk of the City Point development—675,000 square feet of retail and commercial space and 690 new market-rate and “affordable” apartment units at Dekalb and Flatbush avenues.
The deal—set to be announced on Thursday—could also potentially accelerate the timeline on a later phase of the development, a 680-foot-tall residential tower that would be the tallest building in Brooklyn. The developers, Washington Square Partners and Acadia Realty Trust, plan to break ground on the tower by 2017.
“We would not have moved forward without an anchor. Century 21 was what we really needed to make this project a reality,” said Paul Travis, project executive and president of Washington Square Partners.
Century 21 said it would open the new 125,000-square-foot store—twice the size of its Upper West Side location—in the fall of 2015. The chain already has deep roots in the borough given that its second location opened half-a-century ago in Bay Ridge. Members of the Gindi family, which owns the chain, still live in the borough.
“Downtown Brooklyn is a natural fit for the Century 21 brand, and we are thrilled to be a part of the newly appointed epicenter of fashion, culture and art,” the department store’s chief executive Raymond Gindi said through a spokeswoman.
City Point would join other glossy new projects moving forward in Downtown Brooklyn, including the Atlantic Yards project and a new applied-science school planned by New York University.
The project is part of a government and private business effort to turn the Fulton Mall into another Brooklyn gentrification story. Developers want to return it to its glory days in the 1920s to 1940s when it was a department-store mecca and rivaled Herald Square. Though it has remained one of the city’s busiest retail strips and already has a Macy’s department store, it has long been dominated by cheap clothing stores.
As Downtown Brooklyn and its surrounding neighborhoods have attracted more affluent residents, the city’s Economic Development Corp. and the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, a local development corporation, have spent some $15 million cleaning the area up, improving landscaping, installing new street lighting and some additional public spaces.
In recent months, prominent retailers, including Gap, Aldo, H&M and Shake Shack have opened or signed deals on the Fulton Mall.
But the so-called revitalization of the Fulton Mall hasn’t been without controversy, as some have feared an influx of more high-end retailers that could make the street inaccessible to its traditional clientele.
The arrival of Century 21, which features high-end designer brands, but at reduced prices, could help strike a compromise.
“Fulton Mall…was always the place where Brooklynites came to shop and bump up against each other,” said Tucker Reed, president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, the local development corporation. “Century 21 is a discount department store for Brooklynites who want to be able to shop at discount prices.”
Mr. Travis said the rapid redevelopment of Downtown Brooklyn helped move forward City Point, a city-owned site that developers said is the first new commercial development in more than 30 years on the Fulton Mall.
The first, modest 50,000-square-foot tip of the project began in 2010 thanks to a $20 million bond from the federal government’s stimulus program.
The developers had planned to break ground this summer on 300,000 square feet of retail and about 250 units of market-rate and affordable housing. Instead, they now plan to announce Thursday more than twice that much retail and residential development.
BFC Partners will build one building with 250 apartment units, half of which will be below market-rate and financed by the New York City Housing Development Corp. The second building is being developed by the Brodsky Organization and Michael Field, with 440 market-rate apartments.
In an interview, Seth Pinsky, president of the city Economic Development Corp., said City Point moving forward is “a vote of confidence in the city.”
On the Highest Floors, Food Comes to the Workers
The New York Times
April 29, 2012
By GLENN COLLINS
New York, the most vertical of cities, has become a tad blasé about its skyscrapers, high-rise malls and multistory restaurant collections. At last, though, it has a fresh take on the perpendicular: the vertical food-truck court.
Every weekday in recent months, fancy-food trucks have been rumbling into the gigantic freight elevator of the Starrett-Lehigh Building at 601 West 26th Street in West Chelsea. After being hoisted aloft, they roll out into the concrete truck bays on the upper floors of the 81-year-old, 19-story commercial building. There, they post menus and proceed to sell inventive meals to office workers and their guests.
The result is something like an elevator ride in a department store imagined by Willie Wonka. The other day on the 12th floor, Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream was hawking its Michel Cluizel chocolate cones ($4). On Floor 15, the Treats Truck was dispensing its Chocolate Trucker Sandwich Cookies ($1.75) and the occasional Kitchen Sink Crispy ($3). On 17, Coolhaus Ice Cream Sandwiches was selling its decidedly vertical Three-Story concoctions — two scoops of ice cream served between two cookies ($9).
Downstairs, in front of the entrance, Valducci’s Original Pizza offered thin-crust Sicilian pizza with fresh basil ($4 a slice). On the street, a Rickshaw Dumpling Truck did a brisk trade in chicken-Thai-basil dumplings with peanut satay dip ($6 for three).
“This is the first indoor vertical food-truck court in the city, and as far as I know, the country,” said David Weber, president of the New York City Food Truck Association, which was asked three months ago by the building’s owner, RXR Realty, to bring in a rotating roster of a dozen food trucks, including Mexicue, Red Hook Lobster Pound Truck and the Gorilla Cheese Truck.
The problem, according to RXR, was a paucity of lunchtime choices in the neighborhood, an industrial-looking stretch west of the High Line, between 11th and 12th Avenues.
“This area is up and coming, but retail food options here are in their infancy,” said William S. Elder, an executive vice president at the firm. “We invited the food trucks in to increase diversity, and it’s changed the dynamic of the building.”
Although lone food trucks have occasionally ascended freight elevators in Manhattan buildings to cater special events, Mr. Weber said the Starrett-Lehigh Building was the only high-rise in New York where multiple trucks converged five days a week.
Indeed, the building has now become the city’s third food-truck court, as truck owners search for places to park without receiving a ticket or being ordered to move by the police. The food-truck association opened its first last year in Long Island City, Queens, on a lot owned by Rockrose Development Corporation. In February, the association established a second, overlooking the Hudson River near 4 World Financial Center, under the auspices of the Battery Park City Authority and Brookfield Office Properties, owner of the center.
In the Chelsea building, vendors on the upper floors can be visited only by the roughly 5,000 people who work in the building and visitors approved by the security desk, who average about 1,000 a day.
For many workers, the trucks are a welcome presence — even if (or perhaps because) so many are selling sweets.
“So far, it hasn’t hurt my waistline,” said Carl Auge, an exhibition coordinator at the School of Visual Arts Gallery, who was sampling a $1 oatmeal cookie from the Treats Truck.
Christopher Gelarden, an advertising writer, was waiting outside for a slice of Sicilian pizza. “It was weird the first time, seeing food trucks on your floor, but now we’re used to it,” he said. “It’s awesome that the food has come to us.”
In the passenger elevators, placards titled “Truck Bay Gourmet” announce the “Savory and Sweet Truck Schedule” — a guide to each day’s fleet.
The fortresslike building, with its robust floor plates and concrete bays, was designed to bring supply trucks directly up to a congeries of production, storage and repackaging companies, for deliveries and exports. Now, most of the industrial tenants have departed in favor of advertising and design firms, as well as Martha Stewart Living, Hugo Boss and Tommy Hilfiger.
Denise Rodriguez, a vice president at RXR, said that for those kinds of tenants, “We had to be sure of the quality of the food.”
Years ago, she added, “People didn’t want to eat at roach coaches” — traditional lunch trucks, of dubious cleanliness. “But now there is a whole new generation of trucks with high-end food, so we brought in the food-truck association,” she said. “This is a building full of Brooklyn hipsters. Now they have a place to eat.”
City Approves Work on Landmarked St. Vincent’s Building
DNAinfo.com
April 25, 2012
By Andrea Swalec
The facade of the landmarked Reiss Building on West 12th Street will be preserved but the building behind it will be demolished. (DNAinfo/Andrea Swalec)
West Village Residences partner Bill Rudin said the 7-0 vote on the “adaptive reuse” of the brick and stone building was a positive step toward the redevelopment project in the Village.
“Thanks to the efforts of the commission, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Mayor Bloomberg’s office, Community Board 2 and the community, we will now be able to adaptively reuse the entire 12th Street side of the former St. Vincent’s campus,” he said in a statement.
The West Village Residences’ initial plan was to demolish the Reiss Building, which was built for St. Vincent’s in 1953 and 1954. Preserving some of the building was one of several modifications Rudin agreed to in mid-March.
Andrew Berman, the executive director of the Greenwich Village Society of Historic Preservation, said his group would have preferred to see the entire building, not just its façade, saved.
“[The Reiss Building] is an integral part of the history of the West Village and the St. Vincent’s site,” he said.
He said he feared for the integrity of the façade.
“We are concerned that plans to demolish the entire interior of the building and parts of the façade may endanger the parts of the façade which are supposed to be preserved,” he said.
Rudin Management chief operating officer John Gilbert assured locals at a recent community meeting that construction teams would make every effort to protect the façade, The Villager reported.
Planning New York’s Next Iconic Building
The Wall Street Journal
April 23, 2012
By ELIOT BROWN
L&L Holding Co. has reached out to 11 top architectural firms to join a competition to design a new tower at 425 Park Avenue in Manhattan.
Aiming to create an iconic, eye-catching building in the place of a 1950s-built boxy tower at 425 Park Ave., L&L last week reached out to 11 top architectural firms to join a competition to design a new tower. The list included Norman Foster, Richard Rogers and Jean Nouvel, each of whom have won architecture’s top Pritzker Prize.
“We want to work with the best architectural minds out there, because we have some very important things to achieve and to deal with,” says David Levinson, L&L’s chief executive.
Mr. Levinson says he hopes to begin demolition work in 2015 and to finish the new building two years later. The price tag on the project is expected to be about $750 million, he says.
The bold plan to knock down the bulk of the existing building and to put a new one in its place reflects Mr. Levinson’s faith in the value of the site. Currently the building is mostly leased with tenants including the white-shoe law firm Kaye Scholer.
Rezoning Approved for Former St. Vincent’s Campus
On March 28, 2012, the New York City Council formally approved Rudin Management’s plan to rezone the former St. Vincent’s hospital site in Greenwich Village. The project will reactivate the dormant site, create more than 1,600 jobs, restore health care to the local community, and create a new public park and hundreds of new school seats.
Friends of the High Line Releases Designs for Section 3
Initial designs for the third and final section of the High Line – which wraps around the Rail Yards – were released in March 2012 by the Friends of the High Line. Construction on the $90 million project is expected to be done by the end of 2013 and open to the public in spring 2014.
Expanded Museum of Moving Image Reopens
In January 2011, Mayor Bloomberg and other elected officials and celebrities announced the grand re-opening of the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens. The $67 million expansion and renovation doubled the Museum’s size by adding new theaters, exhibition space and an education center.
STAR OF BROOKLYN: George Fontas
Home Reporter
April 23, 2012
BY JAMIE MALLETTE
George Fontas
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT: Since being appointed to the board in 2007, Fontas has served as chairperson for the Police and Public Safety Committee, chairperson of the Pedestrian Safety Sub-Committee, and as a member of the Transportation Committee.
Participation in community affairs came naturally to him, described Fontas. “I was raised in a household that put an emphasis on community and on working with folks to overcome challenges, so now in my adult life, as opportunities to work with other people come up, whether it is working to address safety issues in our neighborhood or any other issues, I really enjoy and look forward to work on those,” remarked Fontas.
“I have been on the Public Safety Committee since I was appointed to the board five years ago, I have a lot of experience in issues relating to restaurants, and other nightlife establishments. Coming out of the Pedestrian Safety Sub-Committee, there was a natural progression between working on pedestrian safety issues and police and safety. It was a honor to be asked to be chair,” said Fontas.
CAREER: Fontas received his Bachelor’s degree in government from Manhattan College and minored in religion. He went on to garner a Master’s degree in government from St. John’s University and a post- baccalaureate certificate in international relations.
Fontas worked as director of communications and legislative affairs for Assemblymember David Weprin when Weprin was in the City Council. Currently, Fontas works as a consultant in government relations for Capalino + Company. Fontas remarked, “I love what I do. It offers me an opportunity to go out in neighborhoods across the city. It gives me an opportunity to see different neighborhoods, communities, community boards and block associations.
“[I enjoy] working with people on a project and getting results that will make sense for everyone. It gets back to working with communities and people on a grass roots community level that I really enjoy,” continued Fontas.
When Fontas is not working with the community, he spends his time bicycling around the neighborhood and being captain of a league soccer team at Chelsea Piers.
PERSONAL: Fontas is a lifelong Bay Ridgeite who proclaims, “Bay Ridge is a special place for me. It’s where I’m from, it’s where my parents made their home and where my mother was raised. I went to the same elementary school as my mother [St. Anselm’s].
“My mother still lives in the same house where I grew up. Some of my closest friends, who I have known for 20 years, still live here. Now it is my friends’ kids who live in the community. Every neighborhood has its benefits, but for me, on a personal level, I have a special connection [with Bay Ridge],” Fontas concluded.
Unfinished at the Cathedral
The Wall Street Journal – April 12, 2012
By EDDIE SMALL
The cathedral viewed from Amsterdam Avenue
[BLOCK] Ramin Talaie for The Wall Street Journal
The cathedral viewed from Amsterdam Avenue
But talk about landmark status for the perpetually unfinished Episcopal church is starting to percolate again, as developers ready plans for a new apartment building on leased cathedral property along 113th Street in Morningside Heights.
Real-estate firm Equity Residential hopes to start construction on the 15-story apartment building next year. The new structure’s footprint would be some 70 feet north of the cathedral itself, replacing large metal sheds and parking spaces in the area now.
Church officials maintain that completing its “real-estate initiative”—as they call an apartment building already open at the southeast corner of the cathedral property as well as plans for another one on the north side—are an economic necessity to provide revenue for the cash-strapped cathedral.
The real-estate income “has a huge impact on our capacity both to operate the cathedral, maintain our mission and, really importantly, do the work we need to do on the cathedral building itself,” said Stephen Facey, the cathedral’s executive vice president. Now that the real-estate initiative is almost complete, he said the cathedral could renew discussion about landmark status for the cathedral and the rest of its grounds.
Some preservationists and area residents argue that such overtures already will be too late.
“It’s just very unfortunate that what was a beautiful open space is now going to be taken up with some commercial development,” said Christabel Gough, an officer of the volunteer group Society for Architecture of the City. “What we’re concerned about is being able to see the cathedral.”
Efforts to landmark the cathedral are as storied as the imposing building itself. The Landmarks Preservation Commission first formally considered designating it shortly after city landmark legislation was enacted in 1966, and it placed the entire 11.3-acre cathedral campus—also known as “the close”—under consideration in 1979. But on both occasions, the commission decided to hold off on the landmark designation until the cathedral was “finished.”
In 2003, the commission decided it was time. It also decided to remove the campus’s two future building sites from landmark consideration to help the cathedral raise enough money to pay for repairs.
Though the cathedral endorsed the commission’s decision, some neighbors, led by then-City Council member Bill Perkins, objected. They argued that designating the cathedral a landmark while keeping sites on its campus open to development was inadequate.
“If the cathedral and the close deserve to be protected as landmarked, then why did the city exempt two elements of the landmark?” said Michael Henry Adams, an aide to Mr. Perkins, now a state senator.
Mr. Perkins persuaded his colleagues to unanimously reject the commission’s proposal for St. John the Divine, a power little used by the council. Mayor Michael Bloomberg vetoed the council’s rejection, but the council overrode this as well, a vote even rarer than overturning the commission’s initial plan.
The moves and countermoves left the cathedral still without landmark protection, and the commission hasn’t taken any major steps toward landmarking the cathedral or its campus since 2003. But the commission now is “actively reviewing the timeline for designating the important historic resources at the site,” according to landmarks spokeswoman Elisabeth de Bourbon.
Since 2003, the cathedral has moved ahead with its development plans but only on the two sites that the commission had voted to remove from landmark consideration.
It awarded a 99-year lease to AvalonBay Communities Inc. for construction of a 20-story apartment building at the corner of Morningside Drive and Cathedral Parkway, which was completed in 2008. The building provides $2.7 million in annual income for the cathedral, according to Mr. Facey.
At the leased site on the north side of the campus between Amsterdam Avenue and Morningside Drive, Equity Residential selected Handel Architects to design the planned apartment building and hopes to start construction in early 2013, depending on when building permits and construction documents are received.
Cathedral officials have set certain restrictions for the new building, including holding the new development’s height to about 145 feet—the same as the eave line of the cathedral—and protecting certain street views of the cathedral.
The new building “will respect the architectural legacy of the cathedral, but anything designed and built will be ‘modern’ and not neo-Gothic or a mini-cathedral,” the Very Rev. James Kowalski, the cathedral’s dean, said in an interview. He said the building’s design “should be available for review in the next few months.”
Overall, Dean Kowalski said he supports landmarking St. John the Divine. “I think having the cathedral landmarked just clarifies what most people think anyway,” he said.
Mr. Perkins said he is willing to work with cathedral officials on alternative ways for them to meet their financial needs, but he hasn’t changed his stance since 2003 on wanting the entire campus landmarked.
“My position today is basically the same,” he said recently.