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Earlier this month, real estate giant RXR and its partner TF Cornerstone filed for a permit to tear down the Grand Hyatt Hotel famously built by Donald Trump and replace it with a 95-story office building that will cost $6.5 billion to construct.
The project won City Council approval back in 2021, but is finally advancing now amid signs that — despite differences with Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his tax-the-rich agenda — Wall Street and the financial sector are eager to pay record rents for new office space.
“The demand is there,” RXR CEO Scott Rechler told THE CITY. “I had a meeting Thursday with brokers who work with financial service companies and they told me their clients are growing so fast that when their leases are nearing an end they always need more space than they currently occupy.”
During the pandemic, the headlines spotlighted a series of Wall Street firms that relocated elsewhere, especially to Miami. Efforts to defeat Mamdani’s push for higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations have led to stories predicting companies would flee New York.
But the numbers tell a different story. Wall Street employment in the city is at a record. Available office space on Park Avenue, a key location for those firms, is almost nonexistent in the most attractive buildings. And developers are planning three new towers on Park, confident there will be financial firms to fill them.
Read more here about the real estate deals that show how attached the financial sector remains to New York City.
Weather 🌤️
Mostly sunny, with a high near 79.
MTA 🚇
In The Bronx, the 2 train runs every 16 minutes between Gun Hill Road and Wakefield 241 St. from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Find all the MTA’s planned changes and the latest delays here.
NYCHA is offering a new concession to the 24 elderly tenants who are holding up a contentious $1.2 billion plan to raze and rebuild several dilapidated public housing developments in Chelsea, giving the holdouts the option of transferring to senior housing similar to their current homes. Read more here.
New city rules will require property owners with working cooling towers to step up their testing for the Legionella bacterium after a Legionnaire's Disease outbreak in Harlem last year killed at least seven people, our friends at Healthbeat report.
Reporter’s Notebook
More Lawyers for Housing Court
As Mayor Zohran Mamdani toured Brooklyn Housing Court on Monday, dozens of tenants, housing rights activists and homeowners facing deed theft rallied outside the downtown Brooklyn building.
They called for a package of anti-eviction bills at the state level and $350 million in the city budget to fund lawyers in order to fully implement the city’s Right to Counsel law. Under the law, which was passed almost a decade ago, eligible tenants facing eviction can get free legal representation in court.
“Half or more [of eligible tenants] that come into intake we turn away because we don’t have the capacity to take their cases,” said Chris Brown, a tenant lawyer with New York Legal Assistance.
The mayor’s proposed budget allocates about $210 million to the Right to Counsel program.
According to city data, about 84% of tenants facing eviction cases with the help of a lawyer through the Right to Counsel program stayed in their homes.
—Samantha Maldonado
Things To Do
Here’s what’s going on around the city this week:
Tuesday, April 14: Enjoy a cabaret performance by the Manhattan School of Music’s Opera Theatre, featuring pieces from the New American Songbook. Free, at 7:30 p.m. RSVP here.
Tuesday, April 14: Visit your nearest Ben & Jerry’s for a free cup or cone of your favorite flavor on “Free Cone Day.” Find your local shop here.
Wednesday, April 15: Romanian-Hungarian jazz singer Stephanie Semeniuc and pianist Juan Felipe Pulido perform a jazz concert at the Consulate General of Hungary. Free, at 6:00 p.m. Reserve a spot here.
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