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Fancy a dip? Here’s how much value pools add to homes

How much extra would you pay for a house with pool? In Los Angeles, a pool can add over $95,390 to a property’s value, while in Austin, Texas, the water feature could boost the value by over $50,220, a new analysis by Redfin has found. To work out how much value a pool can add to a home, Redfin ranked metro areas where at least 5,000 homes had sold in 2018 and more than 2 …

How to Overcome the Overwhelm of Buying a Home

Overcome the overwhelm of buying a new home. Find out the answers to these 7 important questions before you make an offer on that house. Have you found THE home? How exciting! Are you feeling overwhelmed with a flood of questions that are coming to mind? If you are, it’s totally understandable since purchasing a home is probably the biggest decision you’ll make in your lifetime. But buying a home doesn’t have to be overwhelming. It can actually be a lot of fun. And obtaining the right information before buying THE home is just what you need to overcome the overwhelm. Ask Questions to Overcome the…

De Blasio’s new housing czar has ‘mandate’ to improve affordable housing

Vicki Been previously worked as the commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development Following the departure earlier this year of Alicia Glen, the deputy mayor for housing and economic development who played a major role in many of the de Blasio administration’s signature policies, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced this week that Vicki Been, who previously served as the commissioner for the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, will step into Glen’s old role. Been’s first day will be May 6. “As HPD Commissioner, Vicki changed everything about affordable housing in New York City,” …

Is The Bossert Back?

If so, the Eagle is on it.Following reports of a party on the Bossert’s famous roof (on which the Brooklyn Dodgers celebrated their only World Series win), the Eagle contacted one of the hotel’s owners, who said, “We plan to make  a major announcement soon.”The hotel has been under renovation since it was sold in 2012, and two years ago, the Eagle reported on an imminent re-opening, only to follow up earlier this year with news of another delay and the news that the hotel operator originally slated to run the place was being replaced.Stay tuned, and as always, check out the Eagle‘s story to get the details and

Top 5 Stories on Brownstoner This Week: BQE Plans Get a Hearing at a Brooklyn Heights Town Hall

A Redone Brownstone With Original Details and Three Other Houses to See, Starting at $1.5 Million This weeks’s open house picks are all 19th century row houses, ranging from a brick townhouse in Carroll Gardens with mostly mid-20th century updates asking $3.499 million to a Romanesque Revival brownstone in Bed Stuy… Read More >The post Top 5 Stories on Brownstoner This Week: BQE Plans Get a Hearing at a Brooklyn Heights Town Hall appeared first on Brownstoner.

Why South Africa’s construction industry is on shaky ground

A South Africa construction group is calling on the government to intervene following a series of recent episodes in which $1.8 billion worth of building projects have been disrupted by armed groups around the country. A letter from the South African Forum of Civil Engineering Contractors, a lobbying group, to the country’s finance minister, Tito Mboweni, details the incidents and their impact on investor confidence and the country’s construction industry, which has seen a flight …

Affordable Housing Lottery Open for The Pierrepont

As seen on the Brooklyn Heights Association’s Facebook page:There are 23 newly constructed affordable housing units at 146 Pierrepont St., Brooklyn, 11201 currently accepting applications. Preference will be given to people already living in Community Board 2 (Boerum Hill, Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn Navy Yard, Clinton Hill, Downtown Brooklyn, DUMBO, Ft. Greene, Vinegar Hill).Applications are due March 27th, 2019. For more information: www.thepierrepontbk.com. To apply: nyc.gov/housingconnect or by mail to 146 Pierrepont Street Apartments, 1357 Broadway, Box 309 New

NYC’s plan for borough-based jails gears up for public review process

ULURP will kick off next week The city’s plan to close Rikers Island and move those incarcerated there into four borough-based jails is gearing up to move into its next phase. As part of the years-long process of closing the scandal-plagued prison, the Department of Corrections (DOC) and the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice (MOCJ) must go through the city’s uniform land use review procedure (ULURP). The agencies are hoping to kick off that process next week, and have released a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) that lays out the plan…

Top 5 Stories on Brownstoner This Week: Installing Fences and Homes on the Market

Longtime Owner Sells Flatbush Edwardian for $5.15 Million, Corner to Become Apartments Back in November of 2017, a developer’s plan to replace a freestanding house at 100 Lenox Road in Flatbush with a block of modern apartments was suddenly halted, and they were looking to sell. — Well-Preserved 1910s Arts and Crafts House… Read More >The post Top 5 Stories on Brownstoner This Week: Installing Fences and Homes on the Market appeared first on Brownstoner.

Two more retail tenants sign on at Macklowe’s 432 Park

UPDATED March 16, 2019, 9:21p.m.: The massive photo portrait of Harry Macklowe and his new wife isn’t the only new thing at 432 Park Avenue. At a panel at 92Y’s third annual City of Tomorrow summit, Cushman & Wakefield’s executive vice chairman Joanne Podell revealed that two more tenants had signed leases at the 130,000-square-foot commercial component of Macklowe’s luxury condominium tower. New York Post columnist Steve Cuozzo was making a larger point about how […

How to Stay Warm Safely in an Emergency Situation

Be prepared. Stay warm. Be safe. Here’s what you can do if winter weather causes a power outage at home. Spring arrives this month. Aren’t you glad? But it’s still very likely that extremely cold temperatures and severe winter storms will hit us between now and April 30th. Are you prepared to stay warm if the power goes out during a winter storm? Planning ahead is always your best option when it comes to an emergency situation. And here are some great ways to prepare ahead of time and be safe. Invest in a Home Generator to Stay Warm A generator …

Everything you need to know about Midtown’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade

Where to go, when it happens, and how you can watch the parade Today, the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade will once again head to Midtown and the Upper East Side as it kicks off its 257th celebration. More than 150,000 marchers and as many as two million spectators will partake in the festivities along Fifth Avenue, painting the streets green and orange (and passing landmarks like St. Patrick’s Cathedral) while filling the air with the sounds of bagpipes. And the weather is cooperating; it’s going to be around 50 degrees and clear. One thing to note: The parade will take place on Saturday, March 16, rather than on the holiday itself as is customary when March 17 is a Sunday. As with any parade, you can expect…

Grand Canyon to Return to Montague Street

Those of you who, like me, miss Grand Canyon’s superb burgers are in for a treat. While the “Restaurant For Lease” sign remains above the former Armando’s site at 143 Montague (see photo by your correspondent taken this evening), the Commercial Observer reports that the restaurant’s owner, who kept open another Grand Canyon in Park Slope, has taken that space and will return to Montague. It will be right next door to Grand Canyon’s old location, now occupied by B.Good.The one downside to this, although it was probably foreordained by Armando’s closing, is that we will lose the Armando’s sign with

“In Pursuit of Freedom”: Groundbreaking Exhibition Design at the Brooklyn Historical Society

In January, the Brooklyn Historical Society inaugurated its first-floor Shellens Gallery with the long-term exhibition “Brooklyn Abolitionists/In Pursuit of Freedom,” which explores the history of abolition and the antislavery movement in Brooklyn. The exhibit is part of a borough-wide project in partnership with the Irondale Ensemble Project and Weeksville Heritage Center, combining for the first time original scholarly research and never-before-seen archival photographs and documents. To that end, the design for the gallery space breaks new ground in how visitors experience imagery and information. The exhibit—based on five years of research led by curator/ historian Prithi Kanakamedala and project manager Kate Fermoile—is a beautiful combination of tactile materials and …

Top 5 Stories on Brownstoner This Week: A Bed Stuy Restoration, a Dramatic Cobble Hill Reno

The Insider: No-Compromises Gut Gives Cobble Hill Townhouse Window Wall, Dramatic Interior Volume When you have a wide-open brief from adventurous clients, creative architects at the top of their game, no serious budget constraints and, by the way, fine taste, here is the result: the complete transformation of an 1850s brick… Read More >The post Top 5 Stories on Brownstoner This Week: A Bed Stuy Restoration, a Dramatic Cobble Hill Reno appeared first on Brownstoner.

Hudson Yards’ tax breaks are bigger than Amazon’s would have been

Over a period of more than 10 years, government tax breaks and incentives to support Related Companies and Oxford Properties Group’s development of Hudson Yards total about $6 billion. That’s double the package of tax breaks and incentives Amazon’s Long Island City campus was trying to secure before the company scrapped its plans, the New York Times reports. Related Hudson Yards’ president L. Jay Cross told the publication the 28-acre complex that contains 13 buildings …

Aby Rosen rumored buyer of Chrysler Building

The prolific developer may snap up the building for as little as $100 million The Chrysler Building, which has been seeking a buyer since the beginning of the year, may have found a new owner. The Real Deal reports that Aby Rosen, the art-obsessed developer and owner of such icons as the Seagram Building and Lever House, is “in advanced talks” to buy the building. Per TRD’s sources, the final sale price may be a good deal lower than the $800 million that an Abu Dhabi investment fund paid for…

Is a Bistricer/Chetrit Feud Behind Lack of Progress on the Bossert?

In early July the Eagle reported, in a story we linked to here, that one of the hotel’s owners, either David Bistricer or Joseph Chetrit, had said that “a major announcement” about the hotel would be made soon. It was presumed that this would be of a firm opening date for the hotel, which has been postponed several times since six years ago. No such announcement has been made, and no visible work has been done on the hotel for some time. The Bossert’s renovation process is beginning to rival in length the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza.Now the Brooklyn Paper reports that…

Focus on Brooklyn Designers: What’s New at ICFF 2014

The International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF)—one of the centerpiece events of New York City’s design week— opens to the public on Tuesday, May 20th at Jacob K. Javits Center in Manhattan. Last Saturday, I visited the fair and caught up with some of the Brooklyn designers who are exhibiting and were featured in our book Design Brooklyn. ********** Pelle, founded by Jean and Oliver Pelle, has a studio located in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Recently, they …

Top 5 Stories on Brownstoner This Week: A Reader Restoration Diary, a Townhouse Transformation

The Insider: No-Compromises Gut Gives Cobble Hill Townhouse Window Wall, Dramatic Interior Volume When you have a wide-open brief from adventurous clients, creative architects at the top of their game, no serious budget constraints and, by the way, fine taste, here is the result: the complete transformation of an 1850s brick… Read More >The post Top 5 Stories on Brownstoner This Week: A Reader Restoration Diary, a Townhouse Transformation appeared first on Brownstoner.