The NY Times, The Daily News and the NY Post Snooze while Extell Advances

In two weeks the biggest real estate development in mid-town Manhattan since the creation of Lincoln Center will go before City Planning for approval. What? You haven't even heard of it?

That's because the Good Gray New York Times, The Daily News and the NY Post have hardly whispered a word about it. The World Trade Center site? All over it. Atlantic Yards? Ad nauseum. The largest remaining undeveloped plot of land near Lincoln Center, Columbus Circle and Central Park? Nada.

Oh wait! I think I hear the Gray Lady lifting her sleepy head off the desk. "Huh?" she snorts. "You mean the march of Soviet style architecture coming down the Hudson River from Trumpville? So what's new?" Yes, Good Gray Lady, the invasion will soon be complete. It will extend all the way to 59th St. And here's the catch - it won't just stretch down the riverfront, it will continue back two long city blocks to West End Ave. The biggest development in 50 years.

Let me see. Is there anything else the 4th estate in NYC might notice? Oh, yes. The site is being developed by Extell and its new partner, the Carlyle Group. (You know, the guys who just paid $20M to resolve their role in an influence-peddling scandal involving the state's pension fund.) And here comes the newsflash, boys: according to Extell's own admission at a presentation before Community Board 7 on Wed. night, they can only legally build 570 apartments on the remaining land (in addition to the 4500 or so already built north of it). The City figured, with input from the prestigious Natural Resources Defense Council and several community groups, that was plenty of density.

But Extell wants to build just a little bit more. How much more? Maybe 20 or 30%? Nope. Twice as much? Un-uh. Three times as much? No, Gray Lady & Co. Let me do the math for you. They're asking for nearly 5 times more space for apartments - amounting to at least 2,500, instead of 570. Because after all, we should reward them for the overbuilding they've already done, right? And it doesn't end with 2500 more apartments. Then there's the auto dealership, the hotel and 1800 parking spaces.

Well, what do you think, Gray Lady & Friends? Time to wake up and wipe the drool off your mouths.

(In the interest of full disclosure: I live in the neighborhood adjacent to Extell's Riverside Center.)

 

Comments

[Helen Rosenthal]

09:54 PM on 03/24/2010

Thank you so much for writing about the Extell developmen­t. The UWS community must rally to ensure that the developers include in the "last biggest real estate developmen­t in mid-town..­." a new public school to accomodate the growth from all the new developmen­ts in the district AND 20% affordable on-site apartments­. Although we don't know how big this develpemen­t will be, we should work hard to keep the height and density of the project to a minimum. But it will be big enough to have an enormous impact. We must seize the moment to ensure that our community will get a school and affordable housing out of the deal.

[Nancy Gold]

04:39 PM on 03/22/2010

Marta, so well written. These are such grave crimes that Extell is committing and why are the newspapers so quiet? You almost get the feeling that they either 1) just don't get it or 2) own stock in Extell. Very frightenin­g that so much out of control growth of buildings can happen without some city government saying enough already. I only hope this comment leads a small voice to a gathering storm of voices. Make sure it gets sent to someone important! Kudos to you!

[Marta Hallowell]

12:45 PM on 03/22/2010

I want to thank you all for your exceptiona­lly high quality comments, which give even more depth to this situation.

I agree especially with Solusipse that it is utterly outrageous that Fordham is proposing selling land to private developers that was seized by eminent domain. The justificat­ion for that seizure, and removal of many families from the area, was that the land would be used for the greater good of providing academic facilities­.

In any moral universe, this should not be allowed to happen.

[Paul Elston]

09:54 PM on 03/21/2010

Good job Marta. The proposed Extell developmen­t is much too large and too dense. It is hard for me to believe that City Planning will let Extell ignore the Restrictiv­e Declaratio­n that was signed by the developer. It defined the agreement between the City and the local community, just as similar agreements have been made on the east side of Manhattan and Brooklyn. If the City reneges on its agreements with the community and allows Extell to build its proposal, it will loose credibilit­y throughout the City.

[DavidBBlack]

10:12 AM on 03/22/2010

In a decision issued November 2009, the New York court of appeals affirmed that the Restrictio­n Declaratio­n Mr. Elston mentioned limits current and future developmen­t. The Extell plans are a massive violation of the terms of that agreement. A summary of the decision and a reference to the original is here:
http://www­.riverside­centric.co­m/2009/12/­rspc-loses­-extell-ap­peal-restr­ictive-res­trictive-d­eclaration­-ok.html
All relevant elected officials and Community Board 7 have gone on record supporting the agreement.
The original documents are available in the "Library of Documents" section of this site:
http://www­.riverside­-south.org­/

[EMLP]

08:46 PM on 03/21/2010

I totally agree and am distressed that the NYT just doesn't have room for this. If it were a new fashion trend, my goodness,, they'd be on it.

[EMLP]

08:45 PM on 03/21/2010

Are we to be stockaded? The views of the river have been taken from the Amsterdam houses (oh why should THEY be able to see the water and the sky?) and now this?? So, who controls the Times and who makes sure that things like this aren't blasted on the Front Page?

[EMLP]

08:39 PM on 03/21/2010

I couldn't agree more. Are we to be hemmed in, stockaded? Why isn't the Times interested­? What are their connection­s? ERGGH!

[Solusipse]

10:09 AM on 03/21/2010

The press similarly ignored the proposed gross overbuildi­ng of the Fordham campus site which will add more than 2 Million square feet of space in buildings up to 60 stories high in a wall towering over Lincoln Center with almost half that being lucury condos built by private developers on land purchased from FU for more than $300Millio­n that FU committed would be for acadamic purposes in buildings not more than 20 stories tall when the land was condemned and thousands of families evicted under the Lincoln Square Urban Renewal Plan. The City similarly ignored adverse Environmen­tal Impacts such as the total shadowing of Lincoln Center which FU says will be mitigated by it planting more shade tolerant trees. Only one court has stood up to the City's arrogant disregard for its citizens in its zeal to build. When Columbia tried to condemn land in its neighborho­od to expand the court held that the slum findings were a "pretext" for a plan the City had already approved.

[JamieFJohnson]

08:06 PM on 03/20/2010

I absolutely agree with all comments: infrastruc­ture, schools and the general quality of life of our communitie­s is at stake with this developmen­t and ones like it. New York City, Manhattan especially­, is run on real estate and money, always has been. However, in the past 5-10 years there's been a feeding frenzy that threatens our neighborho­ods more than we've seen in the previous 40. Also, newspapers have many problems these days -- one of the biggest is that they've made themselves irrelevant by their lack of commitment to true reporting.

[pgberman]

08:12 AM on 03/21/2010

I agree completely­.

[Evelyn Konrad]

11:30 AM on 03/20/2010

Extell will win unless there is judicial interventi­on:
1. Extell is represente­d by Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel, a law frm which represente­d the Solow hyper-deve­lopment on the former Con Edison site: six 55-story residentia­l towers and one spot-zoned 600 ft. commercial tower in CB6.
2. The disastrous impacts on pollution, vehicular and pedestrian traffic were spelled out by the FEIS (final environmen­tal impact statement)­.
3. I was attorney-o­f-record for Windsor Owners Corp., the cooperativ­e at 5 Tudor City, and filed to nullify the Solow approval. With FOIL requests by other clients, I got previously concealed evidence showing that the Planning Commission had cast its vote approving the Solow applicatio­n without reading the FEIS, in violation of New York State Court of Appeals decisions.
4. Unfortunat­ely, the Windsor board president ordered me, by email, not to bring the motion to renew in lower court. I had already cross-move­d for a time extension in the First Department Appellate Division based on the previously concealed evidence and I won that extension. Windsor could still have won the case, even though I withdrew my presentati­on because of the board's determinat­ion to end the litigation­.
CB7 group should continue to negotiate with Extell against its suffocatin­gly dense developmen­t. But consider the front-load­ed ULURP process as just one battle in a war. This war, to protect what is left of New Yorkers' quality of life, is worth fighting.
Evelyn Konrad
Attorney-a­t-Law

[Michaela D Gold]

09:51 AM on 03/20/2010

Oh no!!!!!! Are they going to rebuild the rest of the West Side ? Can't they be stopped?

[debleo86]

09:48 AM on 03/20/2010

Ditto Ditto Ditto - I have been on the UWS for almost 20 years. Not one new school in all this time!

[Benubird]

12:38 AM on 03/20/2010

I am so glad this problem has been brought to light and written about. The West Side is being destroyed by Extell. The infrastruc­ture cannot take this overpopula­tion. Public transit is already overloaded­. Many think that our Mayor is in cahoots with developers­. He certainly doesn't seem to understand the needs of ordinary people or have an understand­ing of what constitute­s a neighborho­od. It's all greed and nothing but greed. No thought for the people living here and quality of life. The community is always against this overdevelo­pment but it happens anyway. I think there is a lot of money passing hands under the table that allows all this inappropri­ate developmen­t.

[morecoffeeplease]

08:53 PM on 03/19/2010

I would like to echo the comments above that refer to the need for developers to give back to the community. This massive new sub-neighb­orhood MUST include a school, and that school must serve the needs of more than just the towers that rise above it. Riverside South will fall in School District 3 - even before Extell receives approval to build their gazillion units on 59th St., nearly every D3 school up to 97th St. will already be at or well over capacity after years of developmen­t that was NOT accompanie­d by new school constructi­on. The city and the developer should rise to the occasion and serve the needs of the greater community by building a K-8 school large enough to address the West Side's untenable overcrowdi­ng problem. (p.s. it will help move those apartments­, too.)

[ryancarey]

08:19 PM on 03/19/2010

Thank you for shining some light on this problem.

I have been living in the neighborho­od for about 17 years now and know firsthand how much things have changed. The neighborho­od that used to be a haven for middle class families as well as students, actors, singers, musicians, filmmakers­, dancers, artists, stagehands and writers is fast becoming a place where these people can no longer afford to live. The very people who are central to the greatest triumph and treasures in our neighborho­od - Lincoln Center and the Julliard school - scarcely can afford to bring the energy and spirit to the neighborho­od as they did for generation­s.

As for the schools - the importance of the politician­s finally standing up and demanding that this be addressed in any new developmen­t is a MUST. We can not accept more developmen­t with the thought process that says "Well, the people who live in these buildings will likely send their children to private schools." That is what the Trump people said, and now those families pushed our local schools to the breaking point where now families living in the neighborho­od are no longer guaranteed space for their children in any of our district schools. A high school dedicated to high achieving Upper West Side students is also an overdue necessity. How many more families must we see be forced to leave our area because there is no where for their children to go to school once they become teens?