Previous Progress Reports:
••• Northeast Tribeca
••• Northwest Tribeca
••• Southwest Tribeca

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56 LEONARD
After a period of being stalled, the love-it-or-loathe-it 57-story “Jenga Building” by Herzog & de Meuron is a go once again, at least according to news reports in November. (Click that link to see a rendering.) If it happens, it’ll dramatically change that stretch of Church Street.

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ATERA
After missing its scheduled fall opening and then saying they were “hoping” to open this winter, the Compose reboot appears to be making progress. For one thing, there’s a website (just a placeholder, but still); for another, I hear the kitchen is done and chef Matthew Lightner and his team are cooking.

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THE FLEA
The theater, currently based on White Street, is in the fund-raising phase of moving to 20 Thomas. They’ve bought he building; they just need to do construction inside.

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BOULEY STUDIO
When Bouley Studio closed “for vacation” in August, signage said it would reopen in the fall, and (but?) Nicole Bouley said the focus would be on private events. It was unclear whether Bouley Studio as we knew it would return; substantial demolition muddied the waters. The Bouley website, meanwhile, no longer mentions the space at all. In response to a recent inquiry, I was told that the focus would remain on catering. UPDATE: See this post for more (scroll down to till you see the same photo as above).

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CITIBANK
In November, I discovered that the old Bouley Market space would become a Citibank branch; a staffer at the one on Broadway said it would be open by December, but work appears to have come to a halt…?

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142 DUANE
This one is a mystery: The lights are often on, the windows were recently papered. If you know anything, email me at tribecacitizen@gmail.com.

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SUPER LINDA
The latest in Matt Abramcyk’s string of Tribeca restaurants—after Smith & Mills, Warren 77, and Tiny’s—is said to be opening this month. The food is South American, and there will be a separate takeout counter accessed from W. Broadway.

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LOTUS BLUE
“Renovations are going smoothly and we are still targeting to open by the week of Chinese New Year, which is January 23, but don’t have an exact date yet,” says Jeffrey Lim, general manager of Lotus Blue, the Yunnan restaurant coming to where Nam used to be.

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COSMOPOLITAN HOTEL ANNEX
The Cosmopolitan Hotel’s plans to tear down the old MaryAnn’s building and replace it with an annex to the hotel (along with a restaurant on the ground floor) appear to have stalled. Could this be why?

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280 BROADWAY
Another mystery: What’s coming to the old Chase space on Broadway between Reade and Chambers? I asked at Radio Shack, and the singularly unhelpful clerk said she thought it was a restaurant. (What is it about Radio Shack? It’s worse than Staples.) I could see it becoming a Café Metro or something, with seating upstairs.

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37 WARREN
According to the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center, the conversion of 37 Warren to condos—with four new floors on top and retail on the ground floor—will be done by July.

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AFFINA NAILS SPA & NYC LASER CENTER
Another nail salon is coming to Church between Warren and Murray. They’ve been working on it—polishing the space?—for a while now. Maybe it’s close: Here’s the menu of services.

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DOWNTOWN FLORIST
Downtown Florist, around the corner on Church, was to take over the empty space next to Takahachi Bakery, but it’s unclear if that’s moving forward. When I just called, I was told, “We don’t know yet.” Doesn’t sound promising, does it?

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JEAN
Dr. Michel Cohen of Tribeca Pediatrics has rented the old Bangal Curry space at 65 W. Broadway. As of August, he was planning to open the at the end of October; the restaurant would be “based on great, high-quality lunch food both for take-out and sit-in. At night the place will turn into a cafe/wine bar. The place is designed by Matt Maddy who also designed Weather Up on Duane.” And a liquor-license application set to go before CB1 in November said the name would be Jean, but then it got dropped from the agenda. Cohen has yet to respond to an email.

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AROMA ESPRESSO BAR
The popular chain is opening an outpost in 100 Church (at Barclay) “in just a few weeks.”

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WOODROW’S
In November, Erin Garmont went before CB1 to explain how she planned to change Biddy Early’s (43 Murray) into a “great value” steakhouse called Woodrow’s. Biddy Early’s is still Biddy Early’s, though.

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DEMI MONDE
This isn’t remotely Tribeca, but it’s arguably the first truly cool thing to happen in FiDi in a long time: The folks behind Death & Co. in the East Village are launching a café-by-day-bar-by-night called Demi Monde at 90 Broad. Here’s what Page Six magazine had to say recently: “Demi Monde, a 120-seat restaurant at the former China Chalet in the Financial District, which opens this winter. It will serve cocktails and a New American menu including small plates, entrées and sharable snacks like bacon-wrapped dates, white anchovy bruschetta and eggplant caviar flatbreads. Unlike the diminutive East Village haunt, whose gold-flecked wallpaper catches light from chandeliers and candles, the Financial District spot, which boasts a ground-floor coffee bar (they’re working with the ‘top guys’ from Intelligentsia bean house), will have standing room and plenty of seats to spare. Classic cocktails are still the inspiration, but the pair will also experiment with cutting-edge techniques like making watermelon flash-infused vermouth using a whipped-cream canister.” The current word is it’ll open in February.

Update: Congratulations to David G. Imber! It is indeed at Church and Leonard—on Church at the southwest corner, to be specific. (I might have normally asked which corner, but you mentioned the construction.)

••• So very excited about this: “Following whispers of a comeback for 56 Leonard in late July, the Observer reports that Houston-based developer Duncan Hines, who’s been steadily building its New York portfolio over the past 25 years, has taken a stake in the stalled Tribeca condo tower and plans to revive the Herzog & de Meuron design with few changes.” —Curbed

••• Photographer Donna Ferrato’s powerful domestic violence work is featured in the New York Times.

••• The New York Times included you-read-about-it-here-first The Elevens in a big article on crowdsourced restaurants.

••• The New York Post says 56 Leonard–the foxy Jenga-like stack designed for Church and Leonard by Herzog & de Meuron—is becoming unstalled, with only “minor design alterations.”

••• “The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has struck a deal with mall operator Westfield Group to lure shops and restaurants to the World Trade Center site, according to people familiar with the matter. The deal, if finalized, would be a significant boost for the site just as the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks approaches. It would bring in hundreds of millions of dollars from a private developer that would help pay for retail space and fill it with tenants. Developers believe they can attract shops on par with some of Manhattan’s more high-end neighborhoods.” (Wall Street Journal)

••• “He never got to live there. An Italian businessman built the New York City apartment of a lifetime in Tribeca and passed away before he could move in. Officially on the market today for $17.995 million after four months of marketing strategy and preparation, Penthouse C/D at 200 Chambers St., with east, west and north exposures, has views, stunning moments and the highest-quality construction that money can buy.” (New York Daily News)

••• “The Downtown Little League Girls Softball program has come a long way. Just three seasons ago the division was purely recreational, with 30-plus girls, and underhand softball pitching was the norm. Now, DLL Girls Softball is all windmill fast pitches, the league has more than doubled in size (with more than 100 girls on the roster), and, on Thursday evening, one of its teams came within a hair’s breadth of going to the New York State Championship Tournament.” (Broadsheet Daily)

••• Village Voice interviews Blue Smoke’s executive chef Kenny Callahan: “[BPC is] an area that’s underserved. The new Freedom Towers are going up right across the street, there are a whole lot of new residential buildings in the area, and there’s not really a ton of restaurants down there. We found a good spot in the Goldman Sachs building. It’s similar in size to the current Blue Smoke, maybe a little smaller. There isn’t going to be a Jazz Standard in the new restaurant, so it’s only going to be one level, maybe 22 bar seats and 140 seats in the dining room and outdoor patio. It’s going to be a decently sized space. We still haven’t determined the menu; we’re definitely going to have our main barbecue highlights, but we’re also going to try to mix it up a little bit.”

••• “Tribeca Twelve, the new sober living space designed for college students which opens next month on West Broadway, feels more like a luxury loft than a clinical facility,” says DNAinfo, which got a tour. “The six-story former warehouse features plush furniture, flat-screen TVs, stainless steel kitchens, marble-framed fireplaces and bedrooms flooded with natural light.”

••• Blaue Gans chef Kurt Gutenbrunner likes Great NY Noodletown. (Eater)

••• “Hundreds of New York City police officers last week began receiving special training to work in a new World Trade Center command center set to open before the 10th anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks. The 220 officers are the first wave of what the NYPD expects will eventually grow to a 673-officer command, the city’s largest.” (Wall Street Journal)

COMING UP
••• Tomorrow (Sunday) is the Battery Park City Ice Rink‘s last day of the season.
••• In her state of the city address, speaker Christine Quinn evidently called for a market to be established at the Fulton Fish Market. Speaking of which: New Amsterdam Market will be back in May.

IN THE NEWS
••• More on the construction plans for Hudson and Chambers, from Downtown Express and the Tribeca Trib.
••• Should City Hall have an organic vegetable garden? (New York Times via Broadsheet Daily)
••• Governor Paterson appears to have chosen recent mayoral candidate William Thompson to head the Battery Park City Authority (Broadsheet)
••• “This new construction fence design by artist Helen Dennis went up last weekend to beautify the stalled 56 Leonard St. site, where 57 stories of staggered glass condo cubes were supposed to rise in the so-called ‘Jenga building.’” (Downtown Express; image at top left courtesy ADA Art Consulting & Elinor Milchan)
••• Doggy day care—I’m still waiting for someone to come up with a better phrase than that—with spa, restaurant, and boutique proposed for Financial District. (Curbed)
••• The 22-unit condo in the works for 523 Greenwich (bet. Spring and Vandam) is heading for foreclosure. (Curbed)
••• The New York Post falls a little in love with a $7.5 million loft on Hubert (above, second from top).
••• Seventeen-year-old “supermodel”—that bar keeps getting lowered, eh?—Karlie Kloss lives in Tribeca. (And people said Rupert Murdoch was going to cheapen the Wall Street Journal….)
••• A photo report on the opening of Damon Dash’s gallery, DD172, by Joeytoofresh.
••• A couple of nice Tribeca pix, including the one above of Staple Street—though I wish they were larger, on New York City Noir.