Here are the subway disruptions, road closures and other commuting changes you should be aware of as you get around the city this week.
Subways- No G trains between Bedford-Nostrand Avenues in Brooklyn and Court Square in Queens until 8:30 p.m. on Aug. 11.
- Westbound trains skip Elmont-UBS Arena, Queens Village and Hollis stations, Monday through Thursday from 10:00 a.m. through 3:00 p.m. through August 1.
- Trains bypass Locust Manor, Laurelton and Rosedale in both directions, beginning Friday at 11 p.m. to Monday at 4 a.m. through August 5.
MTA Bridges and Tunnels will partially close the Queens Midtown Tunnel at night this weekend to test out 20-plus ton steel flood doors in preparation for hurricanes and tropical storms. The Sunday, July 28 closure going into Monday, July 29 may cause delays during the morning commute. During the following times, one tube of the Queens Midtown Tunnel will be closed and one lane will be open in each direction in the remaining tube:
- Saturday, July 27 at 12:01 a.m. through 8:00 a.m.
- Sunday, July 28 at 1:00 a.m. through 9:00 a.m.
Built in 1882, the landmarked, 10-unit condominium building at 56 Crosby Street made its big-screen debut in “The Devil Wears Prada” as the location of fictional designer James Holt’s Soho bachelor pad. This 4,400-square-foot downtown loft, asking $8,995,000, has a similar layout and every bit as much designer dazzle, with a renovation by David Howell [...]
The post This $9M Soho loft is the ultimate designer-approved bachelor pad first appeared on 6sqft.
Johnson & Johnson lost its bid in a federal appeals court to revive a plan to settle tens of thousands of talc cancer lawsuits by placing a subsidiary into bankruptcy.
The ruling Thursday upheld a bankruptcy judge’s dismissal last year of the Chapter 11 case of J&J subsidiary LTL Management LLC. J&J created LTL to carry into bankruptcy all health claims related to baby powder and other J&J products made with talc allegedly tainted with toxic substances. Last year, the Philadelphia-based appeals court rejected a similar bankruptcy plan.
The decision came on the eve of a Friday deadline for women with ovarian cancer and other gynecological cancers to vote on whether to support a third LTL Management bankruptcy. The company seeks to set aside $6.5 billion to resolve ovarian cancer claims as part of a total $11 billion settlement of J&J’s current and future baby powder suits.
In their opinion, the appellate panel rejected J&J’s claim that the bankruptcy judge erred in ruling that the company’s liability was not greater than $21 billion. The judges also rejected J&J’s arguments that it faced insolvency and cash-flow difficulties.
“No doubt that solvent companies, confronted by mass-tort litigation, can encounter significant financial distress that warrants bankruptcy,” Judge Thomas Ambro wrote for the panel. “When future insolvency is a realistic possibility based on meaningful evidence — not just the result of a highly speculative ‘worst-case’ scenario — a mass-tort defendant has a viable case for bankruptcy.”
J&J will seek US Supreme Court review of Thursday’s decision, said Erik Haas, worldwide vice president of litigation. The company has denied liability in the lawsuits and has maintained that its talc-based products are safe. The ruling doesn’t impact J&J’s plan to resolve all current and future ovarian claims through a third LTL Management bankruptcy, Haas said.
The appeals court also rejected an argument that the second bankruptcy was legitimate because a significant number of talc victims support the effort. That case had divided talc victims, with some backing J&J’s offer to set up a trust fund as part of an insolvency case, and others opposing it.
Some victims argued the second bankruptcy was “in the best interest of creditors.” The appeals court rejected that view.
J&J has said it is trying to round up a super-majority of plaintiffs for the third bankruptcy attempt.
Last year, the same appeals court threw out the first LTL Management bankruptcy, ruling the subsidiary essentially had a blank check from J&J. Soon after that, J&J increased its settlement offer to cancer victims to $8.9 billion. But a federal bankruptcy judge in New Jersey dismissed the case, prompting the latest appeal.
“I hope the message is loud and clear,” plaintiffs lawyer Andy Birchfield, who opposes the bankruptcy plan, said in a statement. “Now is the time for J&J to change course and act as a responsible company by offering truly reasonable compensation to its customers who have suffered serious injuries.”
A wealthy real estate mogul and hotel magnate who found himself at the center of a controversy four years ago when the city turned one of his boutique inns into a temporary homeless shelter has offloaded his Upper West Side mansion for $10 million, according to a deed that appeared in the city register Friday.
Sam Domb, a Holocaust survivor who started the Manhattan-based Empire Hotel Group after moving to New York, sold his 6-story townhouse at 318 W. 81st St. for one dollar shy of $10 million under the entity 318 Oneg Tov NY, records show.
The Domb family's hospitality portfolio includes the Pearl on West 49th Street, the Belvedere on West 48th Street and the Americana Inn on West 38th Street, along with the Lucerne at 201 W. 79th St. — the hotel that famously became a shelter for dozens of unhoused men during the height of the pandemic. The Lucerne reopened to guests in the fall of 2021 soon after the last men had moved out and after months of backlash and the threat of a lawsuit from residents of a neighborhood long considered to be a liberal bastion.
Domb, who is well-known in the Jewish community as a philanthropist who revived a handful of Orthodox synagogues on the Upper West Side, told the New York Post at the time that there were "no problems" at the hotel.
The roughly 9,000-square-foot Upper West Side mansion, which was built in the late 1800s and boasts seven bedrooms, five full bathrooms and six wood-burning fireplaces, was previously listed for $15 million in 2017 and again in 2020 for nearly $13 million. An elderly Domb — whose exact age is unclear — had lived there himself but recently moved out because he could not manage the property's many stairs, according to a source familiar with the transaction, although a listing of the home says it includes an elevator.
The new owners of the ornate townhouse between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive bought the property under a limited liability company named after the address, according to the deed.
The attorney representing the buyer, Matthew Lehrer of his own eponymous firm located in Manhattan, declined to comment. Domb could not be reached for comment, and his attorney Nicholas Kaiser of the Manhattan-based firm Cohen and Gesser did not respond to a request for comment.
Sephora just scored a huge discount on its rent for a Madison Avenue store.
The chain rated one of teens’ favorite beauty retailers last year is now paying $156 a square foot for space at 520 Madison Ave., a steep 66% markdown from its old lease that expired in June. Sephora, which is owned by LVMH and has 15 locations in Manhattan, including two on Madison, agreed to stay on the avenue at East 53rd Street for at least 18 more months.
520 Madison is a 43-story, 1 million square-foot office tower developed in 1982 by Tishman Speyer and still owned by the firm, whose $65 billion global portfolio includes Rockefeller Center and the MetLife Building. CEO Rob Speyer co-chairs the Partnership for New York City and his father Jerry chaired it twice. Tenants at 520 Madison include Carlyle Group and Jefferies.
But even real-estate royalty must grapple with market realities, which are that retailers have lots of choices of where to hang their sign. Storefront space is tight in SoHo and the Upper East Side but other shopping corridors have “ample availability,” the Real Estate Board of New York reported this week. Mark Cohen, a retail-industry consultant and former director of retail studies at Columbia Business School, said it’s harder to lease office space in buildings with an empty storefront.
“You’re seeing owners going to great lengths to prevent that,” Cohen said.
Club Monaco this year signed an extension for space at 597 Fifth Ave. at an 80% discount to the pre-pandemic rate for the area. Sephora’s bargain isn’t quite that large but does shrink its annual rent bill to $1 million a year from $3 million for its 6,400 square feet at 520 Madison. The building’s mortgage was downgraded this week by KBRA because cash flow has fallen “materially.”
“The decline is primarily attributed to a significant increase in controllable operating expenses at the property without a corresponding increase in revenue,” said KBRA, explaining “controllable” costs meant items like maintenance and payroll, which have doubled in the past 10 years.
Upstairs from Sephora, 520 Madison is occupied by Wall Streeters. Jefferies leases more than 40% of the space, at about $100 per square foot. Davidson Kempner Capital Management leases 70,000 square feet and executive recruiter Egon Zehnder International occupies 35,000 square feet.
But tenants have more options than before, with office vacancy rates at 15% in Manhattan and still creeping higher, according to Evercore ISI. At 520 Madison, Citadel moved out of 70,000 square feet last year and two floors remain vacant, KBRA said. Carlyle, the second-largest tenant with 140,000 square feet leased, is looking to sublet. Davidson Kempner will move out of 70,000 square feet and relocate to 9 W. 57th St. after its lease expires next year.
Occupancy is a lofty 96% but three percentage points lower than last year. Net cash flow fell 15% in the past year, to a bit above $50 million, and has declined by 28% in the last 10 years, KBRA said. Those worrisome figures aren’t a pressing concern because the building’s $675 million mortgage isn’t due for another 10 years, thanks to an unusually long 20-year loan written in 2014 by Bank of America and Deutsche Bank.
In a statement, a Tishman Speyer spokesperson said: “520 Madison remains in excellent financial standing with high occupancy and a 4.22% fixed-rate mortgage that will not mature until mid-2034.”
That gave room for the Speyers to swallow the Sephora markdown and keep up appearances at 520 Madison while trying to keep the rest of the place filled. Besides, if they hadn’t agreed to a 66% cut another landlord would have. Cushman & Wakefield’s quarterly retail survey doesn’t publish vacancy rates for Madison in the low 50s, but they’re 16% a block west on Fifth Avenue. The mortgage for the 525,000 square-foot Olympic Tower, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 51st Street, was downgraded due to high-end retailers moving out.
The upshot is retailers at prestigious Midtown addresses are paying less for the privilege. Mango is subleasing space from Ralph Lauren at an 80% markdown for its flagship U.S. store at 711 Fifth Ave. Skims Body, Kim Karashian’s shapewear company, leased Fifth Avenue space for $150 per square feet, 80% below the rate paid by prior tenant Versace. Skims agreed to share a percentage of sales with the landlord above $10 million.
It isn’t clear if Sephora’s lease-extension includes such terms. The retailer did not return a request for comment and Tishman Speyer would not comment on that.
Applications are being accepted for 56 below-market-rate apartments at a new luxury rental in Williamsburg. The nine-story building at 597 Grand Street offers residents spacious units with modern amenities, like a fitness center and rooftop terrace. New Yorkers earning 80 and 130 percent of the area median income can apply for the units, priced from [...]
The post 56 affordable apartments available at luxury Williamsburg rental, from $1,757/month first appeared on 6sqft.
Leases
Indoor soccer facility takes space in FiDi office tower
Address: 28 Liberty St., Manhattan
Landlord: Fosun Hive
Tenant: Socceroof
Lease size: 20,000 square feet
Asset type: Retail
Brokers: Newmark's Jordan Gosin represented the tenant. Newmark Retail's Jeffrey Roseman, Ross Kaplan and Drew Weiss represented the landlord.
Read more about the deal here.
Taproom opening in Durst Seaport building
Address: 220 Front St., Manhattan
Landlord: The Durst Organization
Tenant: Hercules Mulligan
Lease size: 800 square feet
Lease length: 10 years
Asset type: Retail
Brokers: Ripco Real Estate's Dillon Ross and Jon Paul Pirraglia represented the tenant. Lee & Associates NYC's JP Sutro, Brad Schwarz and Olivia Hwang represented the landlord, along with Karen Rose in-house.
Financings
Owner of Carroll Gardens warehouse signs loan
Address: 23-39 Fourth St., Brooklyn
Owner: George Hoffman
Lender: Webster Bank
Loan amount: $26.8 million
Asset type: Industrial
An indoor soccer facility is opening its first Manhattan location in a landmarked downtown office building.
Socceroof has inked a deal for 20,000 square feet at Fosun Hive's 28 Liberty St., Fosun announced Friday. The sports venue features multiple five-sided soccer fields and has other city locations in Sunset Park, Crown Heights and Long Island City, along with one in New Rochelle and two in Montreal. It will offer recreational leagues and lessons for children and adults.
The company will be part of the new 200,000 square feet of retail space Fosun has at the base of 28 Liberty St., which stands 60 stories tall and spans roughly 2.5 million square feet overall, according to Fosun and the commercial real estate database CoStar. Socceroof will be on the same floor as Court 16, a 13,000-square-foot pickleball and tennis club.
Newmark's Jordan Gosin represented Socceroof in the transaction. Newmark Retail's Jeffrey Roseman, Ross Kaplan and Drew Weiss represented the landlord.
Fosun, a real estate firm based in China, purchased 28 Liberty St. in 2013 for $725 million, property records show. The downtown skyscraper includes a 38,000-square-foot penthouse home to the Danny Meyer restaurant Manhatta and an Alamo Drafthouse Cinema as part of its retail space.
The overall building is 89.5% leased with estimated office asking rents of $60 to $74 per square foot, according to CoStar. Major tenants include the New York Attorney General's office and HelloFresh, CoStar says.
Insurance giant American International Group announced in 2020 that it would move its city headquarters to 325,000 square feet at 1271 Sixth Ave. and consolidate its remaining 450,000 square feet of office space in the metropolitan area between 28 Liberty St. and 30 Hudson St. in Jersey City. The firm subleased about 145,000 square feet of its space at 28 Liberty to the electronic payment firm Stripe earlier this year.
Manhattan's office market is still struggling to recover from the pandemic, and Lower Manhattan has been hurting more than Midtown and Midtown South. The neighborhood's availability rate during the second quarter of 2024 was 20.4%, and its average asking rent was $57.08 per square foot, according to data from Colliers.
In recent years, the United States has grappled with the devastating impact of gun violence, which continues to plague communities across the nation. As the founder of LIFE Camp and a dedicated advocate for peace, I have been at the forefront of the fight against violence in our society.
In light of the Surgeon General's recent declaration that gun violence is not just a crime issue but a public health crisis, it is evident that urgent action is needed to address this epidemic. Gun violence transcends mere statistics; it shatters families, traumatizes communities, and leaves a lasting scar on our society.
LIFE Camp exemplifies the power of community-driven initiatives in promoting peace and empowering individuals to break the cycle of violence. By providing mentorship, support, and resources to at-risk youth, LIFE Camp offers a beacon of hope in neighborhoods plagued by gun violence. It is not enough to view gun violence solely through the lens of law enforcement; we must also consider the underlying social determinants that contribute to its prevalence. Poverty, lack of access to education and healthcare, and systemic inequalities all play a role in perpetuating the cycle of violence.
The “Break the Cycle of Violence Act,” currently awaiting approval from Congress, proposes a national framework for violence prevention with standardized funding and resources. Inspired by this, we call for a similar initiative in New York State: a unified, fully-funded system for violence prevention. Such a system would ensure that all community programs operate with the same level of funding, resources, and infrastructure, much like the standardized operations of police, fire, and EMS departments.
This approach would enable communities across the state to address the root causes of violence effectively and implement sustainable solutions. New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul have shown a commitment to addressing gun violence through initiatives such as the SNUG Program and the New York City Crisis Management System, but more needs to be done to create a cohesive strategy.
While their administrations have implemented various initiatives, there is a need for a comprehensive, statewide approach that aligns with the goals of a unified violence prevention system. By fully funding and equipping these programs, we can create a cohesive network that empowers communities to combat gun violence effectively.
As we heed the Surgeon General's call to address gun violence as a public health crisis, let us rally behind initiatives that prioritize prevention, intervention, and community engagement. Together, we can build safer, healthier communities where every individual has the opportunity to thrive free from the threat of violence.
By supporting community-driven solutions and advocating for a fully-funded, statewide system modeled after the “Break the Cycle of Violence Act,” we can create a future where peace prevails over violence and hope triumphs over despair. Let us urge Mayor Adams, Governor Hochul and our state legislators to take this vital step towards a unified and effective system to prevent violence and save lives across New York State.
Erica Ford is the founder and CEO of LIFE Camp, a Jamaica, Queens-based non-profit working to reduce gun violence by creating partnership with community stakeholders.