A Long Island-based developer plans to transform the longstanding but now shuttered Papaya King site on the Upper East Side into a 17-story, mixed-use building, according to recent filings with the Department of Buildings.
ZD Jasper Realty, which in the last year or so has been busy scooping up various parcels across Manhattan, including the more than 90-year-old hot dog chain's former 5,000-square-foot, 1-story building at 171 E. 86th St., filed plans Friday to erect the new development, which will include 25 units, according to city records.
The Tom Wu-founded company, headquartered in Great Neck, bought the site, between Third and Lexington avenues, for $24.5 million from luxury developer Extell in November, Crain's reported. ZD Jasper had borrowed $14.5 million from Pacific National Bank in order to finance the deal.
At Papaya King's old property, records indicate that ZD Jasper Realty wants 2,692 square feet across the first and basement floors to be used for retail, and the remaining 57,060 square feet to be residential condo apartments. A representative for the development told Crain's that Brown Harris Stevens will be handling its marketing and sales. The new building filing was first reported by PincusCo.
Extell's chairman, Gary Barnett, had initially wanted to redevelop the former hot dog and fruit juice stand himself. In June 2022 he filed plans to demolish the single-story brick structure, which also once contained a Children's Place clothing store and a Cohen's eyeglasses shop, but it doesn't appear that those permits were ever approved, Crain's reported. The flagship Papaya King closed its doors last April after 90 years.
The owners of the self-described no-frills frankfurter company looked to continue whipping up its famous offerings in a new space just across the street, at 1535 Third Ave., in a former Modell's sports store, but that plan was also never fully realized. According to reports from earlier this year, the chain was evicted from the space and sued for millions in damages as well as unpaid rent.
Meanwhile, ZD Jasper Realty, which did not respond to a request for comment, purchased its first Manhattan property in 2023, also from Extell—a Hudson Yards development site for $52 million—in order to construct an 11-story, 128-unit project.
Archimaera Architecture, which is the architecture firm on record for the 171 E. 86th St. project, also did not respond to a request for comment.
This story has been updated to reflect that the proposed units will be condominiums, not rentals.
The climbable structure at the center of Hudson Yards will reopen later this year. Vessel, an interactive public artwork, first opened in 2019 along with the mega-development but closed in 2021 after several people died by suicide there. Three years later, the structure will reopen to the public but with new barriers in place, as [...]
The post Vessel at Hudson Yards to reopen this year first appeared on 6sqft.
Rent the Runway notched a record one-day jump after reporting earnings that beat investor expectations and stoked hopes that the clothing-rental company can turn itself around.
The stock surged 162% Thursday to close at $19.38 a share after the company reported fourth-quarter revenue and adjusted earnings that beat Wall Street expectations.
“Execution will be key among all this, but we think the business model has legs,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Poonam Goyal said.
Goyal added that return to work and new offerings for everyday wear in addition to party and formal attire should help the company maintain subscribers over time.
The quarterly report was a breath of fresh air for the company after investors had mostly given up on it. Rent the Runway has been under pressure since the Covid-19 pandemic and working from home shifted consumer fashion trends. Even as workers returned to the office, Rent the Runway struggled to keep subscribers due to a mismatch in inventory.
It reported a 35% decrease in churn from users who primarily cited inventory as a reason for not returning, according to JMP Securities analysts led by Andrew Boone in a Thursday note.
Boone also praised Rent the Runway for improving its website.
“With a faster and more functional site, the consumer experience is also better, positioning the company well to grow subscribers in 2024,” he wrote, adding that the business feels more stable today. Boone maintained a market outperform rating on shares.
Still, even with Thursday’s move, Rent the Runway shares are down roughly 95% since its public debut in October 2021. Just last week, the company implemented a 1-for-20 reverse stock split in order to increase the per share price of its stock to regain compliance with the minimum required for continued listing on the Nasdaq Capital Market.
Nasdaq told Rent the Runway in late March that it was at risk of being delisted if its market value didn’t close at or above $35 million for a minimum of 10 consecutive business days before Sept. 23.
Shares will likely be choppy in the next three to six months, said BI’s Goyal, but she still sees the company as being “on the right track” with subscriber growth.
JPMorgan Chase holds $400 billion in residential and commercial mortgages on its books. Against this are about $20 billion in loss reserves and $250 billion in shareholder equity. So CEO Jamie Dimon would love whatever's ailing real estate to pass quickly. But that's not his base case.
If the economy stays as strong as it is, "real estate will muddle through," Dimon said on an earnings call today.
He said this while business confidence is high, interest rates aren’t going down, and there is war in Europe and the Middle East. The CEO, who warned of economic slowdowns that didn’t happen in 2022 and 2023, didn’t predict one today.
“I just think the chance of that happening is higher than other people,” he said.
In Dimon’s worst-case scenario, persistently high inflation erodes most everyone’s income while unemployment rises, unleashing widespread commercial and residential mortgage defaults.
“That will filter through the whole economy in a way people haven’t really experienced since 2010,” Dimon said.
Unemployment was 9.4% in 2010. It is 3.8% now.
JPMorgan shares were down 6% midday Friday after a disappointing quarterly earnings report. Profit clocked in at $13 billion, but the lender warned of a flattening net interest margin owing to higher costs for funding. Capital levels were robust at 15%.
“We’re earning a lot of money,” Dimon said on the call.
An attempt for a quick and profitable flip at a fancy Upper East Side condo appears to have fallen victim to the current interest-rate environment.
A seller at the Benson, a 15-unit development at 1045 Madison Ave. that surprised many with its success during the pandemic, has found takers for two apartments in the building, Nos. 10 and 11. They sold this month in separate transactions for a total of about $29 million, which pencils out to just a bit more than the $28 million they cost in 2021, according to the city register.
The seller, identified in records as a shell company, Leftshoe, once had much grander plans.
Within weeks of closing on the two full-floor apartments in March 2022, Leftshoe turned around and almost immediately put both of them back on the market. Leftshoe’s asking price for the pair back then was $35 million, an effort to rake in a 25% profit without apparently ever occupying the two homes.
But by that summer and after some stabs at discounting, Leftshoe seems to have scaled back its ambitions at the building, the creation of luxury firm the Naftali Group. Nos. 10 and 11 began to be marketed as separate units—the presence of a kitchen in both of them suggests they were never officially combined—but even that move seems to have met some resistance. Indeed, both apartments underwent some price cuts, according to Streeteasy, before buyers eventually came around.
No. 10, for instance, initially sought $17.5 million but closed this month for $14.4 million. No. 11, meanwhile, which also closed in April but in a different deal, sold for about $15 million, according to the city register, suggesting that after deducting closing costs and attorney fees, Leftshoe may have ended up back almost exactly where it started.
Of course, March 2022, when Leftshoe tried to take its big swing, was also the beginning of a market-shaping event. It’s when the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates to rein in inflation, actions that have sent home-loan costs to historic highs and dragged on the residential market, even at the high end. And there have been 10 rate increases since. Timing, then, may have not been the seller’s friend.
The buyers of No. 10, a six-bedroom spread with five and a half baths, a living room with a fireplace and a formal dining room, were Ralph and Karen Izzo, according to the register. A nuclear physicist by training, Ralph Izzo served as chairman of Public Service Enterprise Group, or PSEG, the major New Jersey electricity utility, from 2007 to 2022, a tenure during which he made combating climate change a priority. Karen Izzo, meanwhile, is a retired biologist.
The couple, who do not seem to have relied on a mortgage for their purchase, went into contract on No. 10 a while ago, in March 2023, and closed April 5, records show. It’s unclear why the closing took so long.
Ilyse Dolgenas, the lawyer who has represented Leftshoe in all its deals in the building, declined to comment. Craig George, a Sotheby’s International Realty agent who marketed No. 10, did not return an email by press time. And the Izzos could not independently be reached.
Meanwhile, the buyer of No. 11, a mirror image of No. 10 located one floor up, was a limited liability company called 1045 Unit 11, which signed a contract on the apartment Jan. 29 and closed April 5, records show. That buyer also seems to have bypassed the tough lending climate by paying with cash.
A 19-story limestone edifice between East 79th and East 80th streets, the Benson launched sales in September 2020 as the city was in the thick of doomsday scenarios about the Covid crisis. But the market embraced the rare new condo on Madison, which sold all of its units (including one to Naftali chief Miki Naftali) by spring 2023. In all, Naftali made $238 million from unit sales, an amount that reflects price increases on some apartments over the course of the pandemic.
Not every flip at 1045 Madison has fizzled. Indeed, the original owner of unit No. 6, who paid $12.8 million, ended up selling the apartment within months of closing in 2022 to a purchaser who shelled out $14.4 million, a 13% gain, records show. But every other owner at the Benson appears to have stayed put since moving in.
The owner of a swanky French bistro in Midtown as well as the high-end Japanese restaurant next door transformed the public walkway between them into a polished outdoor dining space. Now he's looking to change local zoning regulations to keep the space in operation, a move that could allow other eateries in the district to create their own.
Attorney Neil Weisbard from the firm Seyfarth Shaw LLP filed an application with the Department of City Planning earlier this month on behalf of Emil Stefkov, the restaurateur behind La Grande Boucherie, at 1325 Sixth Ave., and Kaiseki Room, at 145 W. 53rd St., to permit the roughly 1,000-square-foot dining area between the adjacent buildings. The change, if approved, would also green-light other restaurants to operate similar spaces within the Special Midtown District of Manhattan, in so-called through-block gallerias, which are open on either end and typically covered by a skylight.
Other restaurants that offer outdoor dining typically operate on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant or in a setup at the curb.
Only two other through-block gallerias currently exist within the district, according to Weisbard, at 135 W. 52nd St. and 1285 Sixth Ave. And in order to take advantage of the proposed zoning change, the adjacent restaurants must already be in operation. A wine bar and the food hall chain Urbanspace operate on West 52nd Street.
A provision in the zoning code dating back to the 1980s that is no longer in effect, as of 1996, permitted the use of gallerias to allow for extra floor area for nearby businesses, but stipulated that "eating or drinking service may not be provided." Current regulations, however, do not specify whether such eateries are allowed. So when Stefkov opened La Grande Boucherie in 2020—and Kaiseki Room in 2021—he took a gamble on the zoning code's ambiguity and turned the then-abandoned public walk-through into a dining space with outdoor dining tables and greenery. If the city approves the application, which Weisbard said has been in the works for at least five years, Stefkov will be permitted to keep the tables and chairs for La Grande Boucherie as well as add new seating for Kaiseki Room. Stefkov was inspired by famous Parisian passageways in which eateries lining open-air blocks operate freely, his lawyer said.
"That's what he wanted to mimic," said Weisbard. "Now there is no provision that regulates through-block gallerias."
Without approval from the city, La Grande Boucherie would have to remove its outdoor tables and chairs, Weisbard said, and the Kaiseki Room would not be allowed to use the space at all. Between the two, Stefkov hopes to get the OK for a total of 57 tables and 114 chairs, according to the application.
"It would revert back to the ugly galleria that it was," he said.
The Department of City Planning said the approval process will likely take at least six months and will require votes from both the City Planning Commission as well as the City Council.
A new City Council bill would temporarily bar political fundraisers and campaign consultants from lobbying the people they helped elect — a policy that, if enacted, would likely affect members of Mayor Eric Adams’ inner circle.
The bill, introduced Thursday by lawmakers Lincoln Restler of Brooklyn and Gale Brewer of Manhattan, would apply a one-year lobbying ban on former campaign staffers who seek to influence their former bosses. As the Daily News first reported, those affected by the restriction would likely include Vito Pitta, the compliance attorney for Mayor Adams’ 2021 and 2025 campaigns who has since lobbied the administration on a range of issues; and Brianna Suggs, Adams’ onetime fundraiser who later started her own lobbying firm.
Restler, in a Thursday press conference, said the bill would address “a longstanding issue” that had drawn scrutiny years before Adams took office.
“It’s an area where people are trading in their influence inappropriately,” Restler said. Still, he did not deny the implications for Adams’ City Hall.
“It continues to be something that we read all about in the newspaper with regard to consultants for the mayor and others,” Restler said.
Restler is also the main backer of two other bills, first introduced last year, which would impose two-year lobbying bans on former elected officials and former “high-level employees” of the mayor’s office, City Council and Law Department. That legislation, set to face its first hearing next week, has an obvious bearing on Frank Carone, Adams’ former chief of staff who founded his own lobbying firm after departing City Hall in 2022.
One lobbyist reached for comment Friday said this week’s bill would not have any dramatic impact on the city’s $130 million-a-year lobbying industry, since many top lobbying firms do not work directly on political campaigns.
“Kasirer, Capalino — for the most part, they’re not doing political work,” the lobbyist said. “It’s fairly inconsequential.”
Also, the bill would not address other ways in which campaign work can evolve into City Hall influence. The lobbyist noted that the bill would not touch labor unions, which exert significant sway on campaigns by deploying volunteers and spending money on advertisements — support that they can leverage once their preferred candidates are elected.
Pitta, Adams’ campaign attorney, leads the government relations firm Pitta Bishop & Del Giorno. The firm has reported lobbying city officials this year on behalf of more than a dozen different clients, including developer Hillel Shohet in his effort to build a new hotel in Midtown Manhattan.
Leases
Largest office landlord nabs more Midtown leases
Address: 461 Fifth Ave., Manhattan
Landlord: SL Green Realty Corp.
Tenant: Certified Moving & Storage Co.
Lease size: 11,232 square feet
Lease length: 15 years
Asset type: Office
Brokers: Colliers' Robert Tunis and Sam Einhorn represented the tenant.
Newmark's Brian Waterman, Scott Klau, David Waterman and Kevin Sullivan represented the landlord.
Address: 461 Fifth Ave., Manhattan
Landlord: SL Green Realty Corp.
Tenant: Centaur Fund Services US
Lease size: 6,933 square feet
Lease length: Five years
Asset type: Office
Brokers: CBRE's Hugh McDonald and David Katz represented the tenant. Newmark's Brian Waterman, Scott Klau, David Waterman and Kevin Sullivan represented the landlord.
Sales
Investor acquires multibuilding, prewar rental complex in SoHo
Address: 188-192 Sixth Ave., Manhattan
Seller: Eugene Brodsky
Buyer: Derby Copeland Capital
Sale price: $24.1 million
Asset type: Mixed use
Rockaways 100-unit development site changes hands
Address: 60-14 Beach Channel Dr., Queens
Seller: Rajive Maret
Buyer: Zev Mayer
Sale price: $7.8 million
Asset type: Multifamily
Financings
Landlord obtains acquisition loan for Williamsburg walkup building
Address: 141 Ross St., Brooklyn
Owner: Moses Karpen
Lender: Bridge City Funding
Loan amount: $10.7 million
Asset type: Multifamily
Kensico Properties refinances luxury hotel on Upper East Side
Address: 28 E. 63rd St., Manhattan
Owner: Nabil Chartouni
Lender: Bank of America
Loan amount: $16 million
Asset type: Hotel
As the MTA’s first Chief Accessibility Officer, who also happens to be living with a permanent physical disability, and the MTA’s first board member who is a medical doctor, and who also happens to be living with a significant visual disability, we work in partnership to ensure we represent the diverse voices of the community when important decisions are being made at the MTA.
Accessibility is more of a priority for the MTA than it’s ever been before, and yet we know better than most how far we have to go. We have many more subway and rail stations to make accessible, thousands of bus and rail cars that need better visual and audio announcement systems, and entire swaths of our city that would benefit from expanded subway service.
The community that benefits from these investments is so diverse — from wheelchair users to those with limited-to-no vision, to the millions of seniors, parents, and tourists who rely on transit to navigate New York every day. To build a system that works for all of these groups — with improved vertical access, enhanced multi-sensory commutations, and better leveraging technology to tackle access barriers — we need capital investment. It’s those capital dollars that allow us to continue enhancing accessibility, and keep our transit system in a state of good repair so it can continue to function safely and reliably for millions of users every single day.
For the first time, the MTA has a roadmap to get to systemwide accessibility, but we need to keep our foot slammed on the accelerator to get there — not get stuck in traffic ‘congestion.’ Finally launching congestion pricing — a program approved by our state legislature 5 years ago – is critical to achieve these goals, ensuring the MTA can continue investing in the system and setting the transit equity standard that moves all of us New Yorkers and those that visit our city for work, fun, or top-quality healthcare.
Congestion pricing will truly unlock New York, bringing faster bus and Access-A-Ride (AAR) service, cleaner air for all, faster emergency vehicle arrival times and much, much more. These benefits are huge, real, and critical for many of the groups we work with most closely.
New York City and our transit system are complex — always changing for the better — and this program is no different. We expect it will transform and improve over time and we know disability advocates will push for that; and we as board members are responsible for ensuring the MTA is transparent in reporting on the program, including the use of exemptions for vehicles transporting people with disabilities.
We all need congestion pricing to ensure our buses and AAR trips run faster and to help us in our journey to build a more accessible and inclusive subway and rail system. We know more work will be critical to get this program right, including the disability exemption, but we have a strong framework in place with a roadmap that is logical, pragmatic and rigorous. Now let’s get to work!
Quemuel Arroyo is the MTA's chief accessibility officer. John-Ross Rizzo is a physician-scientist-leader at NYU Langone Health.