Seen & Heard: Confirmation of a New Starbucks

February 21, 2017 Arts & Culture, Real Estate, Restaurant/Bar News, Shopping

••• BlackTail, the Cuban-themed bar inside Pier A, is evidently taking reservations now.

••• The “for lease” sign is gone from 93 Reade, so something is likely moving in.

••• Signs for the TV show “Odd Mom Out” are up around Laight and Sixth. (They’re going to be there all week?)

••• Here’s what the construction site at 108 Chambers (southwest corner of Church) looks like. The owner has plans for a 10-story building, but has only filed paperwork for the first two stories. The renderings showed a Starbucks and a Vitamin Shoppe, and the Starbucks part of that is confirmed in this DOB filing. The question then is whether Starbucks is getting rid of any of the nearby locations (Murray/Church, Chambers/W. Broadway, or Reade/Broadway).

••• Whole Foods is getting a little desperate.

 
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3 Comments

  1. Carlo
    February 21, 2017 • 1:38 pm

    I still do not understand what are they planning to build on 108 Chambers, whether the two story building they have filed the paperwork for or the 10 story building that is advertised in the developer webpage…do you know?

    Reply
    • James
      February 21, 2017 • 4:17 pm

      They are currently approved to “expand’ the building site from 1 story to 2 stories, all for retail use. This means they are filing to “alter” the building rather than build a new building, presumably to avoid the delay of zoning and other government land use reviews.

      They are approved on the foundation, including by DOB and by MTA, of which the latter is needed given proximity to the subway. They are probably designing the foundation sufficient to carry 10 stories.

      They are clearly staging this project for some reason, with a retail phase and an upstairs residential phase, perhaps to keep their investment relatively low for now, or they expect a glut in the residential market in the time-frame it would take to build the apartments there, or they want the option to sell the site to a residential developer with retail tenants in place.

      The 10-story rendering shows the 2nd floor as apparently residential, so the developer will probably end up not using it as retail as now filed, but rather as the base of construction operations for their phase II – an eventual vertical expansion to 10 stories, without disturbing the retail tenants to be in place.

      The rendering shows a building which seems to conform roughly to the as-of-right zoning for a 10-story, 135 ft tall shown on the axonometric drawing shown on their zoning diagram filed with Dept of Buildings here (PDF): http://a810-bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/BScanJobDocumentServlet?requestid=3&passjobnumber=121193519&passdocnumber=06&allbin=1001487&scancode=ES271543403

      Reply
      • James
        February 21, 2017 • 4:28 pm

        Also, depending on what development is contemplated next door, the (2 story) building remains a “taxpayer” building with saleable air rights.

        Reply

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