Mild suffering for a long time or significant hardship for a shorter time. Those were the choices faced by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority when it came to post-Hurricane Sandy repairs on the L train tunnel under the East River. The MTA has opted for the latter option.
Days are numbered for the auto body shops, car washes, and gas stations near the High Line in Chelsea. They’re slowly being replaced with apartments, art galleries, and artisanal food shops. Last week, plans were filed for a new building that would replace a car stereo store on the corner of West 25th Street and Tenth Avenue.
Last month, Mount Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital (formerly just St. Luke’s) sold off five large, turn-of-the-century buildings in Morningside Heights to Delshah Capital for $111.5 million. Now, the firm has filed plans to convert the elaborate old structures to apartments.
Construction is now three stories above street level at 215 Pearl Street, located on the corner of Platt Street in the heart of the Financial District, where a 39-story, 320-key hotel is planned. The construction progress can be seen thanks to photos posted to the YIMBY Forums by user rbrome. The hotel — which YIMBY first reported on in September of 2012 — will be a Courtyard & Residence Inn by Marriott. The latest building permits indicate it will encompass 165,655 square feet and stand 396 feet in height. The hotel rooms will be located on the fifth through 37th floors, while retail space will occupy some of the ground floor. Guest amenities include bike storage, a restaurant, meeting rooms, a fitness center, and a roof garden on the 38th floor. Lam Group is the developer and Nobutaka Ashihara Architect is the architect of record. Completion is expected in the summer of 2017.
Now that exterior work has completed on 50 West Street – the 64-story, 191-unit mixed-use tower dubbed simply “50 West” under development in the Financial District – crews are now focused on building a 6,800-square-foot public plaza around the base of the building and a pedestrian bridge over West Street (a.k.a. the West Side Highway). Renderings of the spaces have been revealed by the Wall Street Journal. The 24-hour plaza will feature an art gallery, a café, vegetation, and seating. The pedestrian bridge, dubbed the West Thames Street Bridge, will feed directly into the plaza. It will boast steel structural supports and a glass roof and walls. The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) is building the new pedestrian bridge, which will replace the Rector Street bridge located a block northward. Demolition of the Rector Street bridge and construction of the new one is expected to last two years.
