Popeye’s May Be Coming to 14th St.

Curbed.com is reporting on a terrible HVAC noise problem being caused by the system installed by Vapiano last summer. Watch the video, and you’ll see and hear the problem. Here’s the report:

There’s nothing like a good noise controversy to round out the day, so here’s a tipster’s accusation that University Place chain restaurant Vapiano is destroying neighbors’ eardrums: “For the last seven months, residents of 48 East 13th Street, 107 University Place and 35 East 12th Street have been living with an egregious noise condition created by Vapiano’s HVAC system. Attempts to correct this with the various NYC agencies (DEP, DOB have thus far have not been effective. Vapiano has been issued 3 noise violations thus far by the DEP, has been the subject of TV news coverage (NY1 & Fox5), has been found in violation of the Building Code (twice!) and yet the residents are still subjected to the loud illegal noise levels from early morning to well into the late. This has been going on every day since July 16th of 2010.” Precise! So what do the locals plan to do about it? >> The neighbors have a plan: shame the restaurant via blog, video, and petition. Says our tipster about the video, “there is nothing wrong with your speakers, that’s actually what Vapiano’s HVAC system sounds like. If the noise is too loud and you can’t understand what people are saying just turn up the volume!” Noise wars: on.

After decades on Union Square, Rothman’s men’s clothes is moving up Park Ave South one block to a bigger location. Here are the details.

The Real Deal reports:

Beauty brand NYX Cosmetics signed a lease for a new store on Union Square West, a 2,800-square-foot space on the ground floor of Brause Realty’s 75,000-square-foot commercial building at 41 Union Square West, at the corner of East 17th Street. The lease was signed earlier this month. It’s where Starbucks was before it moved.

The youth-focused chain chose a location close to New York University and nestled among a concentration of cosmetics stores ringing Union Square, including Fresh, Bluemercury and Sephora, each within a block of the new location. On the south side of Union Square, Estee Lauder’s MAC inked a lease at the Feil Organization’s 853 Broadway two years ago.

Now that Blick Art Supplies has vacated on our block of 13th St., the question becomes…what will move in? According to recent reports, there is no tenant lined up, and the landlord is open to a large restaurant, a store, a medical office… pretty much anything. They will also subdivide as needed. Stand by.

From The Real Deal:

Extell Development is in talks to buy a Greenwich Village commercial property with substantial development rights from the Duell family, the latest of several deals between the two. Gary Barnett’s firm is looking to acquire 530 Sixth Avenue on the corner of West 14th Street in Greenwich Village, Crain’s reported, citing a source familiar with the deal. The site is currently home to a 17,000-square-foot commercial building housing a Moscot Eyewear store, but public records show it has nearly 127,000 square feet of residential air rights.

Extell and the Duells have struck a number of deals in the past two months. In December, Barnett’s company bought two apartment buildings at 116 Seventh Avenue and 204 West 17th Street in Chelsea from the Duells, paying $11 million. He also bought 502 Third Avenue, a rental and retail building in Murray Hill, from the family for $11 million around the same time. Barnett also seems to be the buyer in the $20 million purchase of a rental building at 27 Washington Square North in the Greenwich Village last month, according to Crain’s. At the time of the purchase, the buyer wasn’t known. [Crain’s] – Ariel Stulberg

The good ol’ days at the northern end of Union Square, date unknown. Note the curved facade of the building that more recently was home to the Kellogg’s Cafe.