Closed: Scarpina

ByDon

For the first time in decades, there are no Italian restaurants on University Place.

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  • All About 12 East 13th

    ByDon

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    A Greenwich Village parking garage at 12 E. 13th St. between University Place and Fifth Avenue will be transformed into eight large condominiums, in another sign of the city’s booming ultra-luxury market.

    The building, which sold for $32 million in 2012, will feature eight apartments—a mix of full-floor units and duplexes—with expected asking prices range from $7.5 million to $28.5 million for the top triplex, according to the project’s developers. Occupancy is expected by the end of 2014.

    The project is a joint development by DHA Capital LLC and Continental Properties.

    The developers plan to add four more floors to the eight-story building, which was built in 1930. A portion of the rear will be demolished and replaced with the new stories, and it will also receive a new façade with elongated bricks to make the windows wider.

    The 10th, 11th and 12th floors will make up one triplex, while all of the ninth and part of the eighth floor will make up a duplex with an asking price of $18 million. The building will be topped by a glass structure being added as part of the 6,000-square-foot triplex penthouse.

    The building will feature a 24-hour concierge, an automated parking system, a small gym, individual storage space and street-level retail.

    The building is currently undergoing demolition, and reconstruction work will begin in a month or two.

    Steven Fisch of Continental Properties, a family business started by his father in 1957, said this was their first joint venture with DHA Capital LLC, and the two groups looked at other properties before deciding on this one.

    “One major factor was the size of the block, the location obviously, and the ability to do something very special, to create almost a work of art with full-floor condos,” said Mr. Fisch. “It’s very hard to find a 67-foot-wide building.”

    Mr. Fisch said the two groups decided to create an ultra-high-end luxury building rather than smaller, more affordable apartments because there has been very strong demand for this type of housing over the past five years, and a shortage of supply.

    He said they also wanted to distinguish themselves from large buildings featuring 150 and 200 apartments.

    “It is in a location, and a time in New York City, when this can happen,” said Mr. Fisch.

    Richard Cantor, a principal at Cantor-Pecorella, is marketing the condos. Mr. Cantor said none had been sold yet, but the ultra high-end luxury residential market is very strong.

    “There’s been a huge uptick in prices in the high end, it’s a very strong market,” said Mr. Cantor.

    He said the building doesn’t have a “pretentious” name, and is just known by its address to keep it simple.

    The last tenant at the 45,000-square-foot parking garage was Hertz Rental Car, which vacated once its lease expired.

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  • Economic Stats for Greenwich Village

    ByDon

    We may or may not technically live in Greenwich Village, but here are some fun stats anyway:
    Though it’s known as a hotbed of diversity, Greenwich Village is really quite homogeneous according to a new New York University-commissioned study by Appleseed, an economic analysis firm. Some highlights from The Economy of Greenwich Village: A Profile:

    ** The population of the Village last year was 72,025, virtually unchanged since 1990.
    ** Children under 18 comprise only 9.2 percent of the population, compared to almost 23 percent citywide. But between 2000 and 2009, the number of children under age 5 grew by 48 percent.
    ** Working age people (25-64 years) account for 69 percent of the Village population.
    ** Almost 80 percent of Village residents are white folks, 9.3 percent Asian, 6.2 percent Latino, 3 percent mixed race and 2.2 percent black.
    ** Village people have a median household income of just over $100,000 a year, more than double that of the rest of the city.
    ** 82.4 percent of Village residents have college degrees, beating even Cambridge (71.4 percent) and Palo Alto (78.7 percent).
    ** Ten percent of Village peeps work in the arts, recreation and hospitality industries compared to a whopping 18 percent in finance, insurance and real estate.
    ** Universities and colleges employ 10,350 people in the Village and their plans to expand are expected to stimulate growth in the local economy.

  • Farmer’s Market Sales Way Down

    ByDon

    The New York Times reports:

    This season’s inclement weather affected farmers’ markets as much as their crops, and customers lost early on never really came back. Just ask Michael Hurwitz, director of greenmarkets for the Council on the Environment of New York City.

    “God, this was a tough year,” Mr. Hurwitz said. Market problems snowballed from the spring, when less produce than usual was available because of rain, cool weather and late planting on vendors’ farms. “That impacted customers coming back to market,” he said. “Spring is not for making money; it’s for getting customers in. Fall is for making money — and less people all season came to the markets.”

    Those all-important weekends, including the two biggest market weekends of the season in mid-October, were rainy, and that meant fewer shoppers, Mr. Hurwitz said. At the largest market, in Union Square, business was off by as much as 40 percent this season. The economic crisis compounded the low turnout, though on the bright side, he said, it generally kept vendors from raising prices.

    But farmers like John Glebocki had little choice. Mr. Glebocki is an Orange County farmer who sells his produce exclusively at 22 farmers’ markets, most of them in the New York City system. He figures he lost nearly 50 percent of his 80 acres of mixed vegetables, but he has faith in his customers. “People understand it’s a low production year,” he said, “and if we have to tack on another quarter a pound.”

  • Summer in the Square for July 25

    ByDon

    7:00 AM    Morning Running Club with Paragon Sports (Fitness)
    7:00 AM    Boot Camp with Circuit of Change (Fitness)
    8:00 AM    Yoga with Jivamukti (Fitness)
    10:00 AM  Yoga StoryTime with Karma Kids (Kids)

    11:00 AM  Key Wilde & Mr. Clarke (Kids)
    12:00 PM  New School Jazz (Music)
    6:00 PM    Club Dance with Peridance (Dance)