Friday, April 27, 2012
Design-intelligent urban development
This is a fascinating keynote by architect and urban planner Vishaan Chakrabarti, Director of Columbia University's Center for Urban Real Estate or CURE. There are some big ideas presented here about the future of New York City's development built around sustainability, economic return to the city, and unlocking the potential of underutilized land, by creating well-designed urban density and mass transit to service it.
One statistic that jumps out is that there are about 4 billion square feet of unused FAR (development rights) in our city today. This is actually land unused because of regulation which, if intelligently developed, could provide valuable economic growth and infrastructure for future generations of New Yorkers. The proposed creation of LoLo, a new lower Manhattan land mass connecting Governor's island with the Financial district is presented too, giving us a glimpse of what thinking out of the box really looks like, when not being used as a marketing punchline.
From the CURE web site: CURE identifies, shares, and advocates solutions for a rapidly urbanizing world. CURE redefines sustainability as dense, mixed-income, mixed-use, transit-based urban development. From climate change and energy dependence to the socioeconomic and political upheaval they engender, CURE addresses emerging and current global issues through the lens of urbanization.
The New York Times' The Hunt covers the often intense ups and downs of people searching for homes in New York City. For the second time this year, I'm privileged to have my clients profiled. It was an exhausting apartment hunt that I brokered, poetically culminating full circle, with my customers Evan and Natalie buying the apartment literally across the hallway from the one where I had met them months earlier, at an open house for one of my exclusives at 350 E 77th Street. It was a real roller-coaster of a search. Times writer Joyce Cohen tells the whole story in 
We've just redecorated, planted, and improved the asking price by $105K to $2,395,000, on this unique Chelsea triplex. Massive terraces on two levels are what makes this boutique property the perfect home for entertaining al fresco. Imagine barbecuing with your friends and family, on over 900 square feet of terraces, connected by outdoor and indoor stairs, providing great flow throughout the apartment. Step inside and you'll find three floors with 1800 square feet of living space, with designer finishes by Andreas Escobar. Modern to the core, it has the feeling of a small townhouse, but comes with the services of a luxury condominium, like a full-time doorman, private gym, pet spa, bike room, and a full-time super. This unit comes with a deeded storage room too. This is one of the first resales at Slate, 165 West 18th Street, off Seventh Avenue; built from the ground up as new construction in 2006— there is truly nothing else like it on the market downtown. Check the 
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