Governors Island

On Monday morning, Leslie Koch, the slim, sandy-haired official tasked with developing Governors Island, took a ferry, then a train, and arrived at a midtown board meeting of the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation, the agency of which she is president.

On the agenda was the approval of a lease with the second tenant on the sprawling, 172-acre island that’s been empty since the federal government handed it over to the city and state in 2003.

The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council agreed to take 14,000 square feet in one building for artist studio space. Save one other small contract for a temporary food operator, no economic development bids are on the horizon.  read more »

Governors Island, the former Coast Guard base and possible parkland-to-be off the southern tip of Manhattan, is offering free bikes to those who venture there on Fridays this summer.

The bikes, sponsored by Transportation Alternatives, come as part of a state and city effort to draw more people to the island while the state and city governments plan the future for the 172-acre space. Both the city and state have said they want to remake Governors Island into a large parkland with a thriving mixed-use district; however, it remains unclear whether the will exists to provide the hundreds of millions of dollars in needed funding.

As for the bikes, they’ll be hard to steal: the island is serviceable only by ferry.  read more »

Governors Island opens to the public this Saturday and the ferry rides to the 172-acre spread are free from Manhattan. The island will be open every weekend through Oct. 5, and will have space for bike riding as well as will host art festivals and concerts.

More on the island here.

 

• London group buys East Harlem, East Village properties.
[NY Times]
• New-home sales drop--again--in February, feds say.
[NY Times]
• Anti-Coney Island condos rally set for City Hall.
[NY Post]
• Changes put Empire State Building on tenants' radar.
[NY Post]
• Housing woes roil markets.
[NY Post]
• City tenants to split $1.9 M. settlement.
[Daily News]
• Indy Racing on Governors Island? Maybe.
[NY Sun]

Did we miss any New York City real estate news this morning? Please send along tips and links.

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The supporters of The New Globe Theater--the proposed Castle Williams arts center on Governors Island--already have lots of famous friends. (Moby! Pacino! Amy Sacco! Philip Seymour Hoffman! Moby!!).

But nothing helps like bedding secretive right-wing billionaire Bruce Kovner. The Lincoln Center vice-chairman has joined the board, where he'll rub elbows with the aforementioned celebs while ogling Lord Norman Foster's pretty plans.

And there's more: Lord Ralph Voldemort Fiennes has not only "shared his enthusiasm and insights into theater design over coffee" with the New Globe folks, but has added his name to their list of supporters.  read more »

- Max Abelson

A Bloomberg Victory: $11.2 Billion for New Schools  read more »

A Bloomberg Victory: $11.2 Billion for New Schools    read more »

“I’ll never forget, I went to the first cocktail party—I can’t claim it was  read more »

“I’ll never forget, I went to the first cocktail party—I can’t claim it was the first, but i  read more »

The U.S. government plays no active role in encouraging the creative investment of designers, Ouroussof writes in today's New York Times. Rather than organize design competitions for an urban site, like in Spain or the Netherlands, it just refers to the private sector. This not only leads to questions about public land and private interests, but has allowed New York to fall behind other cities in developing public works projects.

In imagining an urban-scape for Governors Island, the "call for proposals is an acknowledgment that the government no longer has the resources or ambition to drive a major public works project." And the Mayor's interest in the gondola proposition shows that "the city will go to remarkable lengths to overcome Governors Island's isolation from tourists."

The site is "an ideal laboratory for exploring competing desires to preserve the past and embrace the present." In the end, according to Ouroussoff, it's going to take an architect willing to take some risks. He likely wishes it were him.  read more »

- Riva Froymovich

Construction of the new W.T.C. at ground zero began … yesterday. A 168-foot-long gentle S curve, anyway, that curves through the south tower footprint, says The Times.

It's from yesterday, but this article on proposed federal tax changes should give new homeowners the chills.

Also in The Times, a rundown of the Mayor's affordable-housing record.

Speaking of the Mayor, the Post reports that he wants Governors Island to be developed into a public-health research center.  read more »

The Ground Zero Small Business Association, representing 140 businesses and 700 workers, is struggling to get a fairer deal from the M.T.A. for its members' displacement by the Fulton Street Transit Center, says The Sun.

-Matthew Grace

Administrators at the City University of New York announced recently that they would open a graduate  read more »

The deal to turn Governors Island over from federal to state and city control is foundering, sources  read more »

The Bush administration may be making legal preparations to undo former President Bill Clinton's 11t  read more »

Joep de Koning is a Dutchman with a big idea. It came to him two years ago.  read more »

Even as the nation decides its future, we must mind our own.  read more »

William Tucker, failed journalist, aspiring Internet guru and entrepreneurial gadfly, sat on a bench  read more »

Evoking cries of outrage from leading preservationist groups, the Giuliani administration is seriou  read more »

Governors Island for $1?  read more »

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan brokered the real estate deal of the century while he was soaring in  read more »

Welfare reform, minor league baseball on Staten Island, casinos on Governors Island: Those were amon  read more »