A21-unit affordable housing project that was mired in so many construction delays that 10 prospective tenants gave up waiting while others were left homeless finally obtained a Temporary Certificate of Occupancy last Monday — and tenants are moving in this week.
Cynthia Woodie is one of those affected by the delay. When she learned she won the housing lottery for her affordable two-bedroom in a brand new building at 116 W. 116th Street — a very wide thoroughfare near Adam Clayton Powell Blvd. — Woodie was beside herself with joy.
But two years later, Woodie says she was homeless after relying on representations from agents, managers and developer Richard Sica of Galaxy Construction that she would be able to move in by June 2009. That date, and a series of subsequent move-in dates, were all canceled — but not before Woodie had to give notice to her previous building and move her belongings into storage and her husband and two teenage boys onto friends’ couches.
When contacted by The Post, Sica blamed his previous plumbers and architects for the numerous delays. He finally brought in the prestigious Perkins Eastman Architects and a new plumber to set things right. “I’ve been in business for 30 years and built and renovated thousands of apartments and this is an unfortunate glitch,” Sica said.
But until Woodie contacted The Post and we called Sica, the proper paperwork had not been filed to begin the plumbing and other work to clean up 29 out of 56 items remaining on the Dept. of Buildings’ checklist. Suddenly under a media microscope, Galaxy’s Project Director Jimmy Zervoudis spent two days at the city offices, getting various permits that tenants and city officials say should have been handled months ago.
According to Eric Bederman, a spokesperson for HPD, which has provided funding for the development through the Cornerstone Affordable Housing Program and has been working with the tenants, with Galaxy and with the Dept. of Buildings to get the project on course, the 10 empty apartments will now have to be rented from the pool of original lottery applicants or from new applicants — but the rent and affordability requirements remain the same.
“He can’t charge market-rate rents,” said Bederman.
Sica finally had agreed to move tenants temporarily into his other buildings at no rent and provide future rent breaks when he obtained the TCO. He said of the tenants, “They are getting beautiful apartments at a very reasonable rent.” Rents range from $1,100 to $1,540 per month for the most expensive two-bedroom with 875 square feet.
“It would have been at least another month if you hadn’t been involved,” Woodie told The Post yesterday. “I signed the lease [July 19]. They moved so quickly they were scrambling to get the front door key card to work…finally abandoned it and put on a cylinder lock. I was the first to sign the lease and get access. We’re spending the night there tonight!”
Bederman added, “We are monitoring the situation closely to ensure that the situation is resolved to our mutual satisfaction and that these families do not endure further hardship.”
Kudos, too, to the Buildings Dept. for helping to resolve the situation.
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Two leases totaling 80,000 square feet were signed at Charles S. Cohen‘s 622 Third Ave., which has an asking rent in the low $50s per square foot.
A current subtenant in the building, the financial firm Third Avenue Holdings, signed a direct 10-year lease for 52,000 square feet encompassing the 31st and 32nd floors. The tenant was represented by Gregg Lorberbaum of Centric Real Estate Advisors while David Nevins and Adam Karafiol of Cohen Brothers Realty Corp. represented Cohen in-house.
In a second transaction, a financial corporate communications firm J. Frank Associates, will move from 140 E. 45th St. to the 26,500-square-foot 36th floor of 622 Third Ave. for the next 12 years. Cushman & Wakefield’s Andrew Sachs represented the tenant while the C&W team of Bruce Mosler, Arthur Mirante, Joseph Cabrera and David Glassman worked for Cohen under a new agency agreement.
“Charles has an incredible grasp of the market and what he wants and our job is to provide as much information as possible,” said Mosler of Cohen. One block of 63,000 square feet is left in the tower of 622 Third and comes with an asking rent of “upwards of $50” a square foot.
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At yesterday’s ribbon-cutting for the value-oriented East River Plaza shopping mall in East Harlem, its retail agent Peter Ripka of Ripco Real Estate said there are a few small restaurant spaces left and one larger space. Rents will run $60 to $150 a square foot.
Shoppers heading to the likes of Target and Costco parked free during the morning ceremonies for the 485,000-square-foot cen ter at the former city-owned and dilapidated Washburn Wire Factory site on E. 116th St. that took Blumenfeld Development and Forest City Ratner 15 years to organize and complete.
