It is time to start a real conversation about a small store retail rent stabilization program.
Many neighborhoods , not only in Manhattan, but also in other high use commercial districts in all the boroughs are being shred apart as small Mom and Pop’s just cannot fight back the tide of the enormous run up of commercial retail rents in recent years.
Comprised of Battery Park City, the Financial District, South Street Seaport, and Tribeca, the neighborhoods of Manhattan Community Board 1 are in the midst of a period of tremendous growth and development. New apartment buildings are bringing thousands of new residents to the district. At the same time, large redevelopment projects, such as the World Trade Center, promise to return millions of square feet of office space along with expanded retail and cultural spaces. Under … <Read More>
By Mark Chiusano
Ya-Ting Liu was appointed New York City’s inaugural chief public realm officer two years ago this month. How has the realm changed so far during her tenure?
That was the subject of Liu’s talk at New York Law School’s 196th CityLaw Breakfast on Wednesday, during which she described well-used public space as “the secret sauce of cities” and how she thinks pedestrians should be “the main character” in New York City design. … <Read More>
On November 15, 2024, Department of City Planning (DCP) Director Dan Garodnick released new data showing the city’s storefront vacancy rate is down to 11.1 percent. This marks the fourth straight quarter of declining vacancy.
In comparison, a survey of 24 corridors across the city during summer 2020 showed inactivity rates of over 30 percent. Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island all have borough-wide vacancy rates below nine percent, although some higher vacancy rates persist, … <Read More>
On October 10, 2024, the New York City Council introduced Bill Int. No. 1075-2024[1] (the “bill”) proposing to improve legislative and procedural knowledge of community boards and other local civic entities. This bill, sponsored by Nantasha Williams of District 27 and Majority Leader, Amanda Faíras of District 18, seeks to assign new responsibility to borough presidents, along with the Civic Engagement Commission (“NYC CEC”). Established in 2018 by the Charter Revision Commission, the NYC … <Read More>
By Mark Chiusano
For obvious reasons I was recently revisiting a small controversy over the usage of public space in a certain midtown Manhattan building: Trump Tower.
In 2016, Donald Trump and New York City went back and forth over whether the building had to keep some public benches in the lobby. During construction decades earlier, the tower had been allowed to rise higher in exchange for a little bit of public space (some of … <Read More>