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Mayor Eric Adams on Monday showed off a 30-story office building in the Financial District that is currently being changed into apartments.
Adams has set his sights on an ambitious 500,000 new housing units in ten years.
IIRC from reading article that building Adams paid a visit to has nil, zip, zero, nada, oogatz "affordable" much less low income housing.
"Once complete, 160 Water Street will boast 588 market rate units with a studio starting at $3,000, a price tag that is unusual considering an affordability crisis facing many struggling New Yorkers"
As developer correctly pointed out numbers just don't work. If city wants to see these office to residential buildings supply even small percentage of "affordable" housing it with or without state will need to ante up.
studios starting at 3K is insane.
why do some people want to spend that amount of money on a studio is beyond me,
People are paying $2300 and up to live in busted old RS apartments/building studios, so $3000 isn't that big a deal. Especially since we're talking new construction with tons of amenities.
Market rate studio apartments in Manhattan have hit $3k or more per month on average long ago.
In fact LL's of busted tenement buildings with renovated apartments (studio or whatever) are finding it often tough to compete with all new construction in Manhattan, Brooklyn and parts of Queens. This even for RS apartments.
Again why pay $2600 or about to live in some ancient building even though your apartment is "renovated". HVAC, plumbing and rest is same as for rest of building, again including vermin.
studios starting at 3K is insane.
why do some people want to spend that amount of money on a studio is beyond me,
Another thing, FiDi is streets different than few decades ago when city and LLs first tried to make lower Manhattan a residential neighborhood.
Knew people who had an apartment across from city hall back in day. Suffice to say things shut down by say 7PM and were totally desolate late into overnight. No shops, grocery stores, supermarkets or much in way of other amenities. You wanted groceries it meant going north into West or Greenwich Village or into NJ. There was that huge Pathmark over on FDR, but that was a hike.
Now FiDi has top rated public school (Peck school), tons of amenities for residential including a new Whole Foods at One Wall street.
As someone born and raised on SI knew lower Manhattan like back of my hand by time was a teenager. Going down there now is like night and day from say 1980's or even 1990's.
For lots of folks, $700 a month is their necessary expenses so if your take home is $3k a month then yeah $3k for rent is not going to happen.
As for building conversions, there is a huge difference between residential being a 24 hour operation and business being basically a 12 hour operation. I'm a victim of going from low density to high density in a 5 year period in my neighborhood.
The garbage piles are literally 30 feet long and 2 feet high on garbage night and imagine two piles that size right across the street from each other. Not to mention the food store shelves are unshoppable on weekends due to the crowds.
So yeah, more apartments are great but all those people end up living in stench and needing to scrap for goods if they don't have a flexible schedule.
While the office-to-residential conversion idea sounds good, the costs associated with the conversation and the expiration of 421a last year really make it challenging for redevelopers to charge anything but higher rents.
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