Roosevelt Island is a much more welcoming and fun place than it originally was.
The biggest reason is the large-scale, two-decade effort known as the Riverwalk, which has brought more than 4,000 new residents to eight new buildings north of the bridge.
The nearly $1 billion complex developed by a joint venture of Associated Companies and The Hudson Companies, partners since 1997, will be completed when the ninth and final tower, Riverwalk Heights, opens to tenants this month.
The overall development includes more than 2,100 apartments, of which 40% are designated as “affordable”.
The new tower at 430 Main Street, designed by Handel Architects, brings 357 units to the mix. Of those, 104 are designated for employees of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, which purchased the complex’s first building from the developers and has employees in several other buildings.
The new tower’s amenities include a 5,000-square-foot panoramic roof terrace with dining and exhibition rooms, a fitness center and other amenities.
Related/Hudson also controls 83,000 square feet of retail space in 25 stores on Main Street, which they lease to much-needed services like Duane Reade, Starbucks and several coffee shops.
The Riverwalk brought much-needed new residential life to the island north of the 59th Street Bridge and Tramway, just as the Cornell Tech complex brought science and services to the vacant land between the bridge and Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms State Park at the southern tip .
Associate President Bruce Beal noted with a laugh, “I was younger when we started on Roosevelt Island.” That was 27 years ago.
The first apartment building opened in 2003. Since then, the partners persevered and the project grew, “through all the different real estate cycles, financial crises and COVID,” Beal said.
Hudson President David Kramer recalled that when the companies were brought together by the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation to complete the master plan for the island, “We didn’t know each other. Their feeling was that our background was primarily affordable housing, while Related was known more about luxury. They suggested that we work together. It’s been quite a successful journey.”
Kramer said, “We had some concerns at first. Would this turn out to be a swamp? At the time, Roosevelt Island had no real market-rate housing, and the buildings then were in the brutalist style popular in the 1970s. Would they want people to come and live here?”
The answer would be a resounding yes. As Beal said, “It’s been a wonderful partnership over 27 years.”
Newlyweds in the ‘wedding cake’ tower
The communications and marketing company Orchestra is the parent of eight different companies spread across Manhattan. In early 2025, it plans to consolidate them all into one unified location: the entire 26th floor of 195 Broadway, L&L Holding Company’s signature “wedding cake” tower in the heart of Downtown .
The 42,000-square-foot lease will bring all of Orchestra’s components under one roof: BerlinRosen, BrightMode Talent, Derris, Glen Echo Media Group, Inkhouse, Message Lab, M18 and Onward.
The firms deal with industries including consumer, technology, climate, education, healthcare, real estate and travel.
CBRE tristate CEO Mary Ann Tighe, who repped award-winning tenant Ariel Ball and Zac, said: “The orchestra was looking for well-appointed space with best-in-class infrastructure and a ‘gatekeeper’ solution to bring everyone together her network.”
L&L was repped by Jonathan Tootell, Tanya Grimaldo and Giannina Brancato. The building’s office tenants include Omnicon, HarperCollins, Payoneer and Gucci and Nobu restaurant.
Water Club sinks
The Water Club, a symbol of the city’s glory in good times and resilience in bad times, is officially kaput. Buzzy O’Keeffe’s East River barge restaurant turned over the keys to the city last month, the New York Business Journal reported.
We wrote in June that the once-popular dining and party spot was on its last legs after going dark and stopping taking reservations.
Now, the Economic Development Corporation. is assessing the physical condition of the site before deciding what to do with it next, the site reported. O’Keeffe’s beloved Brooklyn River Cafe remains open.
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Image Source : nypost.com