Souen Undergoes Big Renovation

The long-troubled TGI Fridays in Union Square is finally set to close, as the building goes on the market. “Union Square is so hot down there these days with real quality restaurants it just doesn’t compete well,” explains operator Dennis Riese.

The Union Square Partnership Business and Broker Report for the 1st quarter updates us on what’s new and pulsating in the neighborhood.

Union Square has started the year off on a high note with 10 new business openings and foot traffic recovering to 99% of 2019 levels, a 4% increase from the last quarter. Newcomers include a range of quick service eateries and high-profile sit down establishments, such as the new Coastal Indian
restaurant Kanyakumari from well-regarded Fungi Hospitality. Popular mattress retailer Saatva joined the established home goods corridor on Broadway, and Sweet Cats Cafe brings more family-friendly entertainment to the neighborhood.

Here is the summer newsletter from the New School giving all sorts of info about the new building. Let them eat cake!

Next week (December 24 to December 28), material and equipment deliveries and installation work will continue on all floors inside the building. The site will be closed on December 25th for the holiday but will be open on Monday the 24th and Wednesday the 26th.

The following week (December 31 to January 4), Material and equipment deliveries and installation work will continue on all floors.

This weekend the site will be open on Saturday, December 22nd for interior and superstructure related activities between the work hours of 7AM and 5PM as permitted by the City.

The Observer reports:

Richard Cantor, a principle in the real estate marketing firm of Cantor-Pecorella, considers that the best of Village life consists of “very luxurious” apartments that incorporate the “open expanse” of loft-style living with the communal intimacy of townhouse residency. How serendipitous that Mr. Cantor’s firm should happen to be marketing the new(ish) eight-unit development at 12 East 13th Street co-engineered by DHA Capital and Continental Properties, which, he recently told the Observer, evinces just these same qualities! You know what they say, it’s always easier to sell a product that you truly believe in.

Certain longtime denizens of the Village, of course, would no-doubt quarrel with the tenets of Mr. Cantor’s appraisal, but his luck on East 13th Street has been pretty good so far. He reports that the development has made its first sale, of the full-floor Residence #4, which, he said, went for just shy of its $11.25 million asking price. The buyers, he said, were a young-ish family already living in the area and pleased indeed to find a place of this size–four bedrooms, 4,816 square feet–so near the heart of the neighborhood. The patriarch, naturally, is in finance.

But surely it was not size alone that lured the new owners; there is also, for example, the very luxurious open expanse of the condo’s townhouse-like intimacy to consider. The building, which was converted from a parking garage, retains a trace of automotive functionality, offering private parking spaces gratis for residents via a state-of-the-art robotic system. More creaturely comforts include high ceilings and big windows for plentiful light and air, custom Italian cabinetry, and bathrooms with generous portions of slab marble and Italian limestone.

Mr. Cantor said that he expects several more closures in the coming weeks, and occupancy no later than this summer. But for all you big spenders out there, the glass-sheathed triplex penthouse, we were given to understand, remains available. All you need to move in is $30.5 million, which seems eminently reasonable, for the very best of Village living.

Read more at http://observer.com/2015/03/best-of-the-village-garage-to-condo-development-notches-first-sale-around-11-25m/#ixzz3UYu20ZHe

Some kind of fancy champagne bar will soon be positioned across the street from our front door.