The city has announced its proposal to encourage more residential development in Gowanus, an effort that officials hope will be a prelude to rezoning the neighborhood.
As part of the proposal, Fourth Avenue would be up-zoned to encourage redevelopment of the busy thoroughfare and would make the city’s mandatory inclusionary housing program applicable to the area, Politico reported. In exchange for the zoning change, owners would be required to build affordable housing. Fourth Avenue was rezoned back in the Bloomberg …
by Riccardo Ravasini 
A recent panel of industry experts discussed the idea of a rezoning plan for the neighborhood that is so strategically located. The panel discussed the new types of commercial and residential developments that are transforming the neighborhood, and Department of City Planning director Marisa Lago confirmed that this could eventually necessitate a rezoning. Most of LIC manufacturing zones have not been rezoned since the 60s. With the huge revolution brought by e-commerce in the last decade, times seem ripe for …
by Riccardo Ravasini 
In the late 19th Century South Florida pioneer Henry Flagler recruited Luther Halland, the son of a Swedish minister and brother-in-law to one of his sales agents, to establish a beachside settlement just north of Miami. Halland and another Swedish entrepreneur, Olaf Zetterlund, pitched some of their fellow countrymen on a sweet deal: cheap land in a frost-free subtropical climate. That was the beginning of what would become Hallandale. By 1999, after annexing land adjacent to the Atlantic shore, the …
by Riccardo Ravasini 
The median price of a home in Brownstone Brooklyn (Boerum Hill, Brooklyn Heights, Carroll Gardens, Clinton Hill, Cobble Hill, etc.) and North Brooklyn (Williamsburg, the Navy Yard and Greenpoint), dropped 11.4 percent year-on-year to $1.02 million in the first quarter of 2018. The decline was partly due to a weakening condominium market. During the period, the average sales price for the segment stood at $1.446 million, which amounts to a 7.1 percent drop compared to the same time last year. …
by Riccardo Ravasini 
Developers filed plans for 62 projects with 1,089 units worth a total of about $1.18 billion during the first quarter of this year, according to a data analysis by The Real Deal. This combined sellout value was the highest since the second quarter of 2007, when developers filed plans for 95 projects with 1,274 units worth a total of about $1.22 billion.
It was also the fifth highest combined sellout for the Brooklyn condo market dating back to 2000, the …
by Riccardo Ravasini 
Good news for Manhattan’s Hotel industry: revenue per available room — known in industry lingo as RevPAR — rose in 2017’s fourth quarter for the first time in more than two years, according to a report from Pwc.
Citywide, the trend stuck into January and February, the most recent months on record, with RevPAR increasing 4.8 and 3.6 percent, respectively.
The majority of the growth did not come from a jump in pricing. Instead, it came from higher occupancy levels.
by Riccardo Ravasini