Development

Last year, due to protracted financial difficulties, St. Vincent's in Greenwich Village closed its doors after 150 years, one-and-a-half centuries that saw the hospital play a major role treating victims of the AIDS crisis and the 9/11 attacks. Though many in the neighborhood hoped to see a full-service hospital remain in the Village, a plan eventually emerged to turn the landmark O'Toole building west of Seventh Avenue into an emergency room and outpatient surgery center, while the hospital buildings east of Seventh would be sold to the Rudin family and redeveloped as luxury apartments.

St. George Staten Island could become the region's next great downtown. That's the plan over at the New York City Economic Development Corporation, which is about to redevelop two waterfront sites immediately adjacent to the ferry terminal.

The Bronx is booming. Over the last decade, no borough added more new residents or posted faster wage growth.

The Department of City Planning's commitment to rezoning the city along more transit-oriented lines is a critical component of its sustainability agenda. Allowing more people to live and work next to transit means more people will ride transit and fewer will drive.

We reported yesterday that Department of City Planning Sustainability Director Howard Slatkin recently announced that his agency "believe[s] there are opportunities to lower parking requirements" in a ring of neighborhoods around the Manhattan core. This would be an important step forward in overhauling decades-old policies that lead to more traffic and less affordable housing. Importantly, Slatkin also revealed a major reason why the department sees mandatory parking minimums as so important -- it's all about the politics of development.

Housing is harder to build, more expensive, and often lower-quality as a result of the city's parking regulations, according to one New York City developer.

Since January, Upper Manhattan has been abuzz with news of a proposed development that could bring four new residential towers to Washington Heights. And according to developers Quadriad Realty Partners, there'll be ample parking to go along with them.

As the operator of the taxpayer-financed Yankee Stadium parking garages heads toward default, there's no longer any question that providing so much parking in such a transit-rich location was a mistake on the scale of Carl Pavano's contract. The decision to give up $2.5 million in city taxes and $5 million in state revenue has proven a poor investment indeed. The question, at this point, is what comes next.

Parking minimums continue to stymie the creation of affordable housing in New York City, according to an architect who frequently designs those projects. When a rezoning suddenly put parking minimums in effect for an affordable housing project in the Bronx, Richard Ferrara of DeLaCour & Ferrara Architects was forced to cut apartments out of the building.