Some Of The Harlem News That's Fit To Click: Real Estate Is A Bizarre Thing Edition
This is an amazing thing to watch: Nick Sprayregen, owner of Tuck-It-Away Storage and main Columbia foe who riled up Harlem anti-gentrification activists against the University's expansion, is now proposing that in exchange for his buildings, Columbia give him lots in the expansion zone to build 25-story residential towers of market rate housing.
Will there be any low income units? Oh, of course, if the University subsidizes them, that is.
One of the towers would go up where the Nash building stands, a building the same anti-gentrification and preservationist activists sought to preserve. [Columbia Spectator]
Sick of banks and pharmacies being the only new retail? Someone in the City Council has heard your pleas for a better shopping selection, and are proposing ideas from tax breaks to mom and pop shops to "a zoning proposal in the works for 125th Street in Harlem that would bar banks, offices, and hotels from occupying first-floor retail space, except to allow entrances and lobbies." Chipotle, thankfully, is allowed. [Sun]
Despite the nation's credit crunch, the sale of parking garages for conversion to office and residential space continues, with a four-story garage on 132nd between Lenox and Adam Clayton Powell on the market. [Sun]
Looking for a penthouse below a million bucks? The Langston is your best bet. Plus, it has parking, you know, which seems to be a more difficult thing to find these days. [Sun]
And it's not just parking garages that are undergoing conversions. The trend of condos springing up all around continues, with some appearing in rental buildings at the expense of residents' safety. [Newsday]
amNewYork has an article in the print edition titled The new, old Harlem, Vibrant black middle class survies gentrification, but I can't find it online.
And in culture, which is kinda like real estate, in the sense that it's an integrated pattern of human knowledge and all...
Harlem-born Daily News editorialist Errol Louis says comedian Eddie Griffin, "like Michael Richards and Don Imus before him," is out of touch using the N-word. [Daily News]
Comments
The real talk as of late is experience & quality of this new condo inventory city wide.
For some reason people assume a development is built well and right with quality. A building is just like a car, or an airplane, or anything else that's manufactured: They're not all made with quality & craftsmanship.
Government regulations and standards don't protect cheap product from hitting the market and the first years buyers of Hyundai cars and Yugo cars learned that.
The ugly truth no one monitors. Of all these Harlem Developments (Loft124, 111CPN, 5th on the Park, etc) anyone track how experienced these developers are and the trail of litigation that followed their previous projects?
People want to believe their building is a grade "A" of course, when in truth a lot of stuff built with non-union labor and day laborers, etc. is a grade "C" and worse!
I've heard "The Lenox" is really poorly designed and made (materials, etc.) and will show within 5 & 10 years. I would never buy someone's product their first time out, be it a car, computer, cell phone, or condo. They too have to ascend a learning curve.
I would be curious to know which Harlem developments are really neophyte efforts. 1 or 2 or 2 previous developments does not is not sufficient in my books. Smart money justifies the developer, their cred and track record. Don't know how much of this Harlem development can withstand this "sniff test".
I know few people want to even view these developments in this context. People want to defer prudence, check their brains at the door, and assume a rookie or minimally experienced developer scored an "A" in quality, when in truth crap is being slapped up all over great NYC.
Posted by: Anonymous | September 7, 2007 11:18 AM
The only thing that supercedes white supremacy in Harlem is $$$$$. We all know developers don't give a fuck about Black Harlemites and wanyt us the fuck out quickly, but they really don't give a fuck about you new white tenants moving to Harlem. Money kilss all of that. They will rip their own kind off quickly as they would anybody else. These million dollar condos are made of shitrock or sheetrock-cardboard and stucco not stone. Watch how they build those buildings. You think because thay are taking their time building that means they are using quality materials and putting in quality work? Fuck no-they are stalling for full ccapacity. Probably after a open house a potential buyer leaned on a wall in a model apartment and fell through!. Wait until it rains! Those water stains you see on the newer buildings will be there. Harlem's lcal wildlife-rats , mice and roaches will feast on the new materials and can't wait for you whites to move in-if you don't pack up your own critter when moving in(bedbugs too) Rats will chew through sheetrock like tioletpaper.You forget they are building on top of lond abandoned lots. Unless they lay down heavy concrete and steel -your NYC mascots will bore a whole right up to your sun deck and take a lap in your pool. Mold will eat faster through the shitrock than old prewar walls(these wall protected many long time Harlemites from bullets throut the years. Solid project walls are a thing of the past for you new condo owners. Have you found the sweet spot in your apartment when shots ring out? If not all the tapestries you hand on the wall will stop a 9mm slug from piercing your blond scalp! These condos are built with a self life of 5 to 7 years because the developers are only looking at Harlem as a temporary spot until they invade the Bronx. Goodluck!
Posted by: HARLEM OBSERVER | September 16, 2007 01:56 PM