LuxuryBlurb
Posts Tagged ‘highline park’
Wednesday, May 1st, 2013
Posted by Leonard Steinberg on May 1st, 2013
The illustrious LUKOIL site at 239 Tenth Avenue at the corner of 24th Street in the heart of the West Chelsea Arts District has supposedly gone to contract after multiple bids…..and it appears the price was several million dollars over the asking of $ 18,95million.
The site next to 245 Tenth Avenue (those owners must be celebrating!) has always been somewhat of a blight for a rather attractive block, filled with art galleries such as Gagosian, and residential buildings soon to be joined by 560 West 24th Street, the Adam Gordon/Tavros-developed building alongside 200 11th Avenue, and Cary Tamarkin’s 508 West 24th Street diagonally opposite this site. If this site, separated from the Highline Park by a sliver of 245 Tenth Avenue housing Bryce Wolkowitz’ gallery does indeed get developed as a condominium, it will boost the value of the entire area that has become most recently famous by the addition of AVENUE’S private school.
Is the CARWASH next?
Friday, July 20th, 2012
 Here is a shot of progress at the construction site of the new Whitney Museum at the start of the Highline Park…..looking good!
Saturday, February 25th, 2012
 Posted by Leonard Steinberg on February 24th, 2012
Location, location, location, the first three most important rules for the best real estate and yes, this rule even applies in politics! Mitt Romney learned this painful lesson yesterday while delivering a speech in Detroit to a group of 1,000….in Ford Field, an arena that can hold 65,000 people. 64,000 empty seats never looks good for an event. Wrong location!
Yet again, the right location is everything. I hear this same message from other groups too:
RETAILERS: They always prefer being on the East side of a North-West flowing street….why? Shoppers tend to come out later in the day as the sun is overhead and heading west. That leaves the east side of the street sunny and cheerful….and more attractive to shoppers, especially for smaller retailers.
RESTAURANTS: Most restaurants rely surprisngly heavily on walk-in traffic: No walk in traffic, and the chances of paying sky-high rents and making a profit are tough.
ART GALLERIES: While there are a few that like to exist on their own, separated, the majority like to be clustered. This makes life for art buyers, critics and viewers more convenient, and it also maximizes exposure, especially if you are aq newer gallery with less of a following.
FOOD STORES: If you want to know where neighborhoods are gentrifying with almost certainty, look out for a Whole Foods. They spend big bucks analyzing trends, building permits, transportation, street traffic, pedestrian traffic, etc to locate their stores in the most prominent up-and-coming neighborhoods……anaylisis you don’t have to pay for! Remember Houston and the Bowery before Whole Foods came along? Or how south of Chambers Street in Tribeca was poo-pooed….till that Whole Foods opened at 101 Warren Street….and all of a sudden that location became prime! So will a Whole Foods go into the West Chelsea 28th Street and Eleventh Avenue site? It certainly makes sense with the Highline Park, Hudson Yards, The Americano Hotel, a new subway stop at 34th Street and 11th Avenue, not to mention the thousands of new homeowners and renters that have moved there recently…. I used to live at 225 Fifth Avenue and every morning and evening I would see hundreds of tourists at Madison Square Park wondering around staring at the Flatiron and Empire State buildings…..the owners of EATALY must have seen what I saw!
Super-cool boutique hotels and restaurants can have the same effect….think the ACE HOTEL. Around the corner a new Starbucks just opened….
Leonard Steinberg says: Good location has everything to do with simple, common sense and nature: Have you ever tried planting sun-loving flowers in a shady spot?
Wednesday, February 15th, 2012
 Posted by Leonard Steinberg on February 15th, 2012
Have you seen the rather striking art installation now on display under the Highline Park at 24th Street (on the site of the future PACE gallery), New York’s prized Contemporary Art gallery block between 10th and 11th Avenues? It’s worth a visit!
Best viewed after dark, it features a light installation, video all interconnected with two full sized drag-race cars…..do you have something like this on the block where you live?
Thursday, June 9th, 2011
 Posted by Leonard Steinberg on June 9th, 2011
YOSI MILO GALLERY is opening a new gallery at 245 Tenth Avenue, the iconic stainless steel building hovering over the newly opened extention of the Highline Park.
I am shamelessly sharing this information as we are marketing the building, but it is always exciting when another gallery is added to what is already a prized gallery district for contemporary art….and Yossi Milo represents some of the very best artists of our time. And also lets celebrate the fact this retail space will not become another boring bank or Duane Reade! (even though it can be convenient to have one on every corner in Manhattan!) Now all retail is sold at 245 Tenth Avenue, and the condominium plan is about to be declared effective. www.yossimilo.com
Thursday, June 2nd, 2011
 Posted by Leonard Steinberg on June 2nd, 2011
The penthouse at 2 Horatio just went to contract for over $ 4,000/sf: Granted it was gut renovated, has spectacular views and significant outdoor space, but 2 Horatio is not exactly considered a trophy building. It is a co-op with lovely apartments, although most are rather ordinary. Across the park (Jackson Square) the penthouse at One Jackson Square sold for significantly less at just under $ 3,000/sf, even though its a brand new condominium with a swimming pool. Around the corner, Jennifer Anniston just bought three apartments including a penthouse on West 12th Street for just under $ 9 million total…they are to be combined and require a complex renovation so at the end of the day, the price will probably be around $ 4,000/sf too. These three apartment sales clearly indicate the strength of West Village pricing in New York…..an area becoming known as RECESSION PROOF.
Its also the area where the young (or young-at-heart) wealthy want to live now. The fact that prices of this caliber are being achieved in OK buildings certainly screams for a new building that delivers more than just great apartments, but also services and amenities to rival uptown buildings such as 15 Central park West.
With the down-zoning of the entire area, views will always sell for a premium in this part of town known for its amazing year-round light and charming tree-lined streets, not to mention its proximity to the Hudson River Park, the Highline Park, Meatpacking District boutiques and nightlife, the new Whitney Museum coming to 12th Street…..and the list goes on. West Greenwich Village rules! (Yes, anything West is pretty good these days, and only getting better.)
Wednesday, April 27th, 2011
 Posted by Leonard Steinberg on April 26, 2011
It appears Sullivan Street Bakery is coming to West Chelsea….a sign popped up recently just a few doors down from their restaurant venture COMPANY on Ninth Avenue between 24th and 25th Streets. This bakery, known for its exceptional baked products especially its breads and pizza’s will be a welcome addition to the neighborhood for sure!
We think anyone positioning themselves close to the 23rd Street access point to the Highline Park scheduled to open in a month will be handsomely rewarded not only by the throngs of visitors and tourists, but also by the thousands of new residents that have moved in and are still moving in to the area.
Tuesday, December 21st, 2010
 Posted on December 21st, 2010 by Leonard Steinberg
With the recent announcement of the Whitney Museum’s new outpost planned for construction at the end of the Highline Park in the Meatpacking District, Downtown will be forever changed. The Renzo Piano (Think Pompidou, Paris)designed 55,000sf art museum will be a cultural anchor of historic significance that will forever alter the fabric of the area, more recently famous for restaurants, fancy boutiques and slick hotels. The Highline Park will provide a connection between a world-class museum and the world’s strongest concentration of contemporary art galleries, making the West Side a cultural destination unlike any other anywhere in Manhattan, or the world. And it will fuel New York real estate.
With 3 million visitors in its first year alone, the Highline Park in itself has been a huge draw: but with a limited span open, its true ‘facebook-style’ connectivity effect has yet to be felt when the extension opens up the park from 20th Street to 28th Street, the streets where the bulk of the galleries are located. I leave it to your imagination what else will follow, but I predict that within 5 years, the area will be unrecognizable from its current state. I suspect a strong retail element will follow, as well as continued residential construction to add to the already superb mix from architects such as Jean Nouvel, Shigeru Ban, Annabelle Selldorf, Neil Denari and Frank Gehry. The very best may be yet to come.
Monday, August 30th, 2010
 It is now certain that within the next 10 years, the Manhattan skyline will look very different. Plans for a spate of significant high rise buildings appear to be moving forward now as the economy slowly un-locks.
Developers are readying two residential towers that will rise above most of Midtown. The massive mixed-use development planned west of Penn Station would transform Manhattan’s skyline as viewed from New Jersey. Downtown, the transformation is already happening, with the warped, metallic skin of Frank Gehry’s Beekman Tower looming over the neighborhood around City Hall and, at Ground Zero, 1 World Trade Center already rising to 36 stories.
Some of the proposed alterations to the city’s skyline have been opposed. Vornado Realty Trust’s plan to build a tower near Penn Station attracted criticism from people wanting to preserve the Empire State Building’s iconic spot.
But the new projects are being propelled by powerful forces. The City Council’s near-unanimous approval of the Vornado project is a sign that elected officials are much more concerned about producing jobs than aesthetic concerns. “They were saying New York needs new buildings,” says Carol Willis, director of the Skyscraper Museum. “Before that, I would’ve said that New Yorkers like their city just fine the way it looks right now.”
“Politics trumps everything in development,” says Leonard Steinberg, managing director of Prudential Douglas Elliman and leader of the LUXURYLOFT team. “When politicians need to create jobs, huge buildings that employ thousands become desirable, something that also caters to the Unions. Remember the midtown Jean Nouvel tower that was proposed a few years ago? Jobs were not a political issue then, so the Tower was scrapped.”
From a residential perspective new towers are definitely in demand, especially in the Midtown area: they offer the views, services and amenities that this buyer craves. Aside from the Bloomberg Tower and the Time Warner building, there are not too many options.
From the commercial perspective, businesses are demanding super-efficient high-tech spaces with high security and quality space. It is very difficult to retrofit existing buildings to achieve this.
And if you don’t think this will happen, look at West Chelsea to-day compared to 10 years ago…..100 Eleventh Avenue, 456 West 19th Street, 200 Eleventh Avenue, 231 and 245 tenth Avenue, Gehry’s IAC building, HL23, The Caledonia, all viewed from the Highline Park…..
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
Is 14th Street becoming chic? If the rumors about the imminent opening of a highly exclusive SOHO HOUSE-style private club are true, it would appear so. The club, THE NORWOOD, will be located in a sensational mid-19th Century Greek revival townhouse and membership will be strictly by invitation only….The club could be an important bridge connecting Chelsea, the Village and the Meatpacking District….with the Highline Park connecting this to the rest of West Chelsea. Verrry chic!
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