development watch: West 28 Street, between 6th & 7th Avenues

whose backyard is it, anyway?
Some stories are perennials. For the Manhattan media wing of the Real Estate Industrial Complex it might be one merging trend (families move to suburbs for quiet!) or its opposite (families move back to city because suburbs are too quiet!). For someone without a REIC card like Manhattan Loft Guy, it might be new development is new, or developing neighborhoods develop. All of which is a roundabout way of responding to the story reported yesterday in Crain’s (though I saw the version in The Real Deal) that a new hotel might be coming to Chelsea’s (former) Flower District:

The 12,083-square-foot parcel, which is right now home to a seven-story, mixed-use loft building, also comes with air rights from nearby properties….

The buildings at 146-148 West 28th Street and parking lot at 140-144 West 28th Street offer 170,000 feet of buildable space, Crain’s said, and so could make the perfect site for a new hotel

This story is perennial because something is always changing, somewhere in Manhattan. You might think that this is so obvious that only an idiot would take time to make the ‘point’ (thankyouverymuch), but then you would under-estimate the ability of Manhattan apartment and loft dwellers to ignore what is (and is not) around them.

Big Yellow Taxi, indeed
My recent favorite example of this involves apartment owners on East 15 Street who overlooked a 2-story building, while overlooking the fact that a 2-story building in prime Manhattan is like an acorn for an oak tree, contrasted with loft owners on West 15 Street who paid a little more attention, in my October 9, diligence due + negligence committed as West 15 Street lofts + East 15 Street apartments lose views. But that being a perennial issue, the theme makes for frequent, if not annual, posts:

this issue of development in developing areas has been a concern of mine since … (well) … forever. My July 11, 2006, Now you see it (and pay for it), now you don’t / what are views worth?, was occasioned by an article in The Real Deal that directly bears on this risky-views-in-developing-nabes issue (hint: “development … can both destroy views and increase real estate values”).

Chelsea hotels = mushrooms apres le deluge
I will quote but not otherwise repeat my August 18 post, much diligence due over planned hotel in West 37 Street, which dealt with this exact issue 9 blocks up and 2 over, with some of the at-risk lofts identified:

Part of the charm of living in loft neighborhoods (in Manhattan and elsewhere), for me and I suspect for many people, is that they may be ‘developing’ neighborhoods, with a certain vitality missing from more staid (mature) residential areas and (often, at least early) a discount from the overall market because the ‘developing’ neighborhood may be a little more gritty than mature residential areas.

Part of the risk of living in loft neighborhoods (in Manhattan and elsewhere) that are ‘developing’ neighborhoods is that they … uhhh … will continue to develop. Take the West 30s in Manhattan, for example, with classic loft buildings sitting on very gritty blocks, such as the Glass Farmhouse at 448 West 37 Street, the Cass Gilbert at 130 West 30 Street, the Courant and the Hartford at 360 and 348 West 36 Street (I love those names), the West Side Lofts at 347 West 39 Street, or 315 West 36 Street (why didn’t they give that one a name??).

In blogging terms, I hit this issue in this neighborhood a million years ago (in real terms, in my September 14, 2006, West 30s ready for a close-up (but send Max back to Bible study) and in my July 31, 2006, More on lofts with views / Big Sky Country in the West 30s, in which I noted “As grist for a future blog post, a couple of these buildings have nearby development slated which will impact some of the views, but that is for another day….”). Ladies and Germs, it is that other day!

Because so much of the 100 blocks of West 27th Street to West 29th Street remain commercial and rental, I can only see a few Manhattan loft buildings that may lose light and/or views if a 15+ story hotel replaces the 7-story 146 West 28 Street and the adjoining parking lot. I don’t see any on the north side of 28th Street or either side of 29th Street, but can only assume that the two buildings just south of this development site have the most risk (145 West 27 Street and 143 West 27 Street). Across 27th Street,  the north-facing (“F”) lofts at 144 West 27 Street have bragged about ‘city views’ for, like #7F, so they may also lose views if the new hotel is big enough. (Assuming it is built, at all, of course.)

what’s a loft owner to do?
Again quoting from my October 9 post:

That is life in the Big City. Especially life in the kinds of ‘developing areas’ that residential loft conversion tend to occur in. If you are concerned about potential development near you, do as VToy implies you should:

• get on your Community Board’s email list (go to meetings!)
• read the notices on lampposts in your neighborhood
• ask your coop board what they are doing to stay current on these issues
  
    You might even want to read Manhattan Loft Guy.

For these blocks, that means Community Board 5, 450 Seventh Avenue, Suite 2109, New York, NY 10123, 212.465.0907, Fax: 212.465.1628, office@cb5.org. You can sign up for neighborhood specific email blasts here: http://cb5signupform.site90.com/forms/cb5signup/cb5signup.php  It pays to be diligent!

And you can count on variations on this post occurring from time to time. Plus ca change…

© Sandy Mattingly 2011