New York, NY – Brooklyn Leads as Stalled Real Estate Projects Top 500

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    Brooklyn Leads as Stalled Real Estate Projects Top 500New York, NY – Brooklyn, which led the way with the condominium-development boom a few years ago, now has the less-happy distinction of beating out the other boroughs in the number of stalled projects.

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    The borough is home to 237 developments on which work has stopped, or 46% of the total, according to the New York Building Congress.

    As of Nov. 29, work had stopped on a total of 515 formerly active construction sites throughout the five boroughs, virtually all of them residential projects, the Building Congress says in an analysis of New York City Department of Buildings inspection records.
    However, that figure actually represents an improvement from the beginning of the month, in which city records revealed a total of 531 stalled projects. The earlier tally represented a 33% increase over the total of 398 in July, when DOB began tracking the stalled sites, and a 17% gain on September’s tally of 444.

    “Earlier this year, we reported on the dearth of applications for permits to begin new residential projects in New York City.

    Apparently, the economic contagion has now spread to residential projects that were already permitted and where construction already began,” says Building Congress president Richard T. Anderson in the report.

    “Though the late November numbers offer some encouragement, it is important for government and the development community to continue working together to minimize the immediate environmental and quality-of-life impacts of these stalled projects on the hardest-hit communities.”

    Eight of the 10 New York City neighborhoods with 10 or more stalled projects are in Brooklyn, and 30% of the borough’s idle construction sites are in just four neighborhoods: Williamsburg, East Williamsburg, Greenpoint and North Side-South Side. Not surprisingly, these neighborhoods represented the epicenter of residential development in Brooklyn earlier in the decade.

    With 140 stalled projects as of the end of November, Queens ranks second among the boroughs and the projects comprise 27% of the citywide total. However, the end-of-month tally for Queens is down from the 147 idled sites at the beginning of November and up only slightly from the July total of 136.

    In Manhattan, a total of 80 projects were listed as stalled in DOB records, compared to 57 as of late July. Fourteen percent of those projects are in the Turtle Bay-East Midtown area, where 11 sites are idled.

    The biggest gain on a percentage basis was in Staten Island, where the number of stalled projects more than doubled from 15 in July to 29 at the end of November.

    In the Bronx, the number of stalled projects has risen only slightly during that time, from 22 in July to 24 today.

    The Bloomberg administration recently enacted legislation to help re-start stalled sites. In exchange for submitting comprehensive site safety plans to DOB, owners will be able to renew their building permits for up to four more years.

    However, Anderson says, “The city should consider further incentives to encourage developers to re-start stalled projects.” He cites new tax credits, zoning modifications and related steps “to help get development back on track.”


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    5 Comments
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    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    its depressing to drive around brklyn and see all these stoped construction sites. I hope that it gets better and people can get their jobs back and finish these projects that were started.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    A lot of the blame is because if the DOB which stop construction jobs for the most ridiculous reasons. In order to get these jobs restarted is like starting from scratch and takes months and months before every new detail gets reviewed and needs to get reapproved. In the interim the banks or lenders get an excuse to stop funding and do not advance the requesitions for the construction loans. In todays environment they look for any lame excuse to stop funding, which is then followed by lawsuits and legal wrangling where every body looses. That’s why we have so many stopped project. It all starts with the Building dept. Its about time that the Bloomberg administration is brought to task and responsible for this demise, then proceed and force the banks and lending institutions to complete what they started and commited to without playing games. This is only going to get worse if nothing is done about it. We should be calling our polititions and make them pass legislation that would stop this disaster from spiraling.

    Knows what is going on nside DOB a bit
    Knows what is going on nside DOB a bit
    14 years ago

    The DOB has a huge part of the blame. This week Monday the Brooklyn boro office gave a stop work order for six jobsites that these sites need to provide the standard of steel that they used. When the commissioner’s office was asked about it the answer was “provide the certification and it will be lifted”. Certification for these sites were provided by wednesday and they were lifted with the excwption of one site. When the commoissiner was asked directly by an expediter of one of these projects why the job was stopped the answer was that since MAYBE they were using sub-standard steel headquarters ordered these jobs stopped. When asked why they couldn’t just send a letter provide certification and leave everybody alone the answer was that it was coming from headquarters and that’s it. On Thursday it was verified that the whole thing was that technical compliance unit went out on a wild goose chase because a shipment from China with substandard steel was shipped to the USA and they were afraid that MAYBE some of the steel eventually arrived in NYC so this was a random check. In the meantime about 150 people didn’t work for 3 days. You can e-mail me for more info   fightdob gmail.com

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    In genral, your choice of generic photos to illustrate articles often gives an inappropriate spin to the story. Here, that glass building near Grand Army Plaza is up and running, even if only partially occupied.