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Archive for the ‘New York News’ Category

The Transport Workers’ Union is not pleased about the recently announced deal to turn 370 Jay Street, an office building in Downtown Brooklyn that houses Metropolitan Transportation Authority offices and equipment, into New York University’s Center for Urban Science and Progress, NY1 reported. Members of the union packed a meeting of the MTA board in today, urging them to vote down the deal to abandon the agency’s former transit headquarters in the Downtown Brooklyn neighborhood. [more]

The Real Deal New York

The Laurel and Rodrig's 28th floor apartment

A Turkish trader who controls two firms that were sued by the Securities Exchange Commission last summer for insider trading is the latest international buyer to score a luxury Manhattan pad. The New York Observer reported Yomi Rodrig paid .8 million for a 28th floor unit in the Laurel condominium, at 400 East 67th Street.

The 2,285-square-foot apartment has three bedrooms and three bathrooms. The Lenox Hill building has a fitness center, multiple swimming pools and a children’s play area. Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group was listing the unit for .33 million.

Rodrig’s latest trading troubles stemmed from his purchase of millions of dollars of Arch Chemicals shares days before Swiss Lonza Group announced its .2 billion purchase of the company. But it wasn’t his first run-in with the SEC. In 2005, he relenquished .8 million in profits and .4 million in fines to settle a short-selling charge. [NYO]

The Real Deal New York

In this step-by-step lesson for advanced English language learners, students read and talk about the compelling subjects of love, relationships and marriage.
The Learning Network

Roger consultant Steven Kamali, a photograph of a new guest room and a rendering of the new lobby

The Hotel Roger Williams in Murray Hill, now known as the Roger, will be opening June 1, and the hotel’s publicity team released a rendering of the lobby and a photograph of a renovated hotel room to The Real Deal today.

As Crain’s reported, the hotel, at 131 Madison Avenue, at the corner 31st Street, is undergoing a million renovation, including a makeover of the hotel’s 194 rooms, restaurant and lounge. A spokesperson told The Real Deal that 60 percent of the rooms are completed and available for hotel guests.

Room renovations began Jan. 1 and renovation of the lobby, including lounge, bar and restaurant, began March 26. Everything’s expected to be complete by June 1, when the Roger will officially launch in its new incarnation.

JRK Hotel Group, which owns and operates the Roger Williams as well as three hotels in California and one in Tennessee, brought in famed hospitality guru Steven Kamali as a consultant for the the design of the public spaces, plus its food and beverage selection (note: correction appended). The hotel’s new restaurant, according to the spokesperson, will be an American bistro. The spokesperson said roll-out of the hotel’s food and beverage spaces won’t happen until late May. — Zachary Kussin

The Real Deal New York

From left: Michael Guerra, Elliman’s Brooklyn managing director, and Frank Percesepe, Corcoran’s Brooklyn senior regional vice president

Home prices and transaction volume in Brooklyn and Queens were down in the first quarter of 2012 compared to the same period last year, according to market reports released today by residential brokerages Prudential Douglas Elliman and the Corcoran Group, although the overall picture shows stability.

In Brooklyn, the median sales price dropped 5.3 percent to 0,000 from 5,000 in the same period last year, while the number of sales tumbled 23.9 percent to 1,807 from 2,373 sales, the Elliman report says. Corcoran pegged the median sales price at 8,000, a 2 percent decline over the same period last year.

However, observers remained positive about the Brooklyn housing market in the face of a slump in sales and prices.

After several “fragile” quarters, said Michael Guerra, Elliman’s Brooklyn managing director, “what we’ve emerged into is very solid stability because we have health at both the high and low end.”

While sales volume may be down compared to last year, the first quarter of 2011 showed an unusually high number of closings, as buyers returned to the market following a drop-off in demand caused by the expiration of the federal first-time homebuyer tax credit in mid-2010, said Jonathan Miller, president of appraisal firm Miller Samuel and the author of Elliman’s report.

“Yes, sales are below the same period last year, but sales aren’t declining,” he said. “It’s just that we had this one period that stood out.”

Meanwhile, transactions involving less expensive properties — such as co-ops and entry-level homes — took up a bigger share of the Brooklyn market last quarter, skewing prices downward, Miller said. This mimicked a trend established in the fourth quarter of 2011.

For example, sales of condos, which are generally pricier, fell 41.2 percent year-over-year, to 543 units from 923 units, while co-op sales dropped a more modest 21 percent, to 368 units from 466 units, the Elliman report says.

The median sales price of a co-op in the first quarter was 5,000, down 6.8 percent from the same period last year, while the median sales price of a condo came in at 8,000, down 8.1 percent, according to the Elliman report.

Additionally, listing inventory dropped sharply, falling 16.7 percent to a below-average 6,092 units from 7,316 units at the same time last year, the report says.

If one dark spot exists in the Brooklyn market, it is in new development, which made up a relatively typical 15.2 percent of the market. Sales of newly constructed condos slid 44.1 percent year-over-year, to 275 sales from 492, according to the Elliman report, while the median sales price declined 3.4 percent to 1,930 from 9,654.

However, Corcoran found that new development accounted for 28 percent of sales, its lowest level in three years. “While demand for new housing remains strong,” Frank Percesepe, Corcoran’s Brooklyn senior regional vice president, wrote in the firm’s report, “sales volume and price growth remain subdued.”

Also evident was a jump in townhouse prices because of two record-breaking deals in Brooklyn Heights — 212 Columbia, which sold for million and 70 Willow Street, the one-time haunt of Truman Capote, which sold for .5 million.

Those sales pushed the median price for single-family townhouses up 37 percent in first-quarter 2012, to .285 million from 5,000 in first-quarter 2011, the Corcoran report shows.

Overall, Queens followed a similar trajectory as Brooklyn. In the first quarter of 2012, sales decreased 16.2 percent, to 2,176 from 2,598, compared to the same time last year, the Elliman report says. But the drop in inventory outpaced the drop in sales, falling 35 percent to 8,851 units from 13,609 units at the same point last year.

Prices dipped slightly, dragged down by the high share of entry-level apartments trading hands in light of historically low mortgage rates: the median sales price dropped 1.1 percent to 6,275 from 0,000 in the prior year quarter.

Nevertheless, that’s an improvement from past quarters, Miller said, when the Queens housing market was “hanging on by its fingernails trying to stabilize.”

The Real Deal New York

Nearly 100 students wrote in to our latest Reading Club selection. Here are some of our favorite comments.
The Learning Network

We’re on vacation until April 16, but we’ve provided a live feed of two red-tailed hawks watching over eggs that may hatch at any moment and teaching ideas for spring-related topics.
The Learning Network

An updated collection of resources on a topic regularly in the news for the past two years. Has all the attention on this subject helped? Tell us your thoughts.
The Learning Network

Developing and executing tests to determine how clothing affects how people think or behave and how they are perceived by others.
The Learning Network

Sharpen your scissors (or flex your “command + c” fingers), because our annual Student Found Poetry Contest is back! If you’re between 13 and 25 years old, please read the rules, and post your best poem by April 16.
The Learning Network