There has been a lot of depressing news in the past year, and we likely haven’t heard the last of it, so let’s focus on the positive (for one post, anyway). Here are 34 things to look forward to in Lower Manhattan.

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MORE THAN A DOZEN NEW RESTAURANTS
The restaurant slate for 2018 is strong: Greca, the sibling to The Greek in Truffles Tribeca; Frenchette, from longtime Keith McNally chefs Riad Nasr and Lee Hanson, in the former Cercle Rouge; Chicago “diner” Au Cheval, at the corner of Walker and Cortlandt Alley (that’s its famous burger pictured above); the Tribeca outpost of Il Mulino; two Matt Abramcyk restaurants—A Summer Day Café and, downstairs, meat-driven Holy Ground—in the old Super Linda; Buddha Bar in the old Megu; New York Vintners’s “indoor farm,” which has a restaurant component; Attraversiamo, across the street from Terra (and from the same folks); the café at 145 Hudson; possibly a Japanese steakhouse at 20 Warren; a huge Sant Ambroeus at Brookfield Place; Danny Meyer’s restaurant atop 28 Liberty; Breads Bakery (opening spring 2018, says Westfield’s website) and Market Lane at the World Trade Center mall; Monk McGinn’s pub on Murray.

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AND NEW WAYS TO WORK THAT FOOD OFF
The Tribeca fitness boom continues with Club Pilates on Murray, shooting for January 20; and Y7 Studio (yoga) on Leonard and SLT on Worth, both aiming for early February. And then there’s Lymbr, the chain of stretching studios opening an outpost on Jay.

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ON THE SHOPPING FRONT
New shops are harder to predict, because they don’t require the advance notice of, say, a restaurant. We can expect Jill Lindsey‘s lifestyle center, with shopping, fitness, a café, and more; Maharishi on Lispenard; and Allied Maker lighting on Franklin. And then of course there’s the Whole Foods in FiDi and the Trader Joe’s at Sixth Avenue and Spring. Beyond those, a number of former retail spaces are undergoing work, so they might surprise us. Keep an eye on the former Shoofly store (42 Hudson) and the Ten Thousand Things store (7 Harrison)—and if you hear of anything, let me know!

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CULTURE HIGH AND LOW
Anish Kapoor’s silver blob has to be coming soon to 56 Leonard, right? The other big art news around here will be the first New York City outpost of L.A. gallery Regen Projects, and Artists Space’s new home on White. And then there’s the Alamo Drafthouse cinema complex at 28 Liberty. (Or not, since it has never been confirmed.) Meanwhile, somewhere on the horizon is the $243 million Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center, designed by REX. From the New York Times: The “proposal contains three small theaters that can be combined in various configurations to produce and stage theater, dance, music, opera and experimental works, and can serve as a space for the Tribeca Film Festival each spring. […] The cube-shaped 90,000-square-foot building […] is to be wrapped in thin sheets of translucent white marble encased in glass, giving it a solemn look in daylight but an amber glow from within at night.” The earliest we might expect it to open is 2020. A bajillion renderings (like the one above).

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THE SEAPORT DISTRICT
The Seaport District—as the Howard Hughes Corporation has rebranded the revamped South Street Seaport development—should finally come into focus. The biggest change, a from-the-pilings-up redo of Pier 17, is scheduled to open in 2018. (Take a look inside.) It’ll be home to, among other establishments, a 10,000 square-foot Jean-Georges Vongerichten restaurant with a 2,500-square-foot patio. “The atmosphere won’t be fine-dining but casual along the lines of ABC Kitchen and ABC Cocina,” said the New York Post. In the nearby Tin Building, Vongerichten will have “a 40,000 square-foot, seafood-themed marketplace [that] will not be ethnically focused like French-themed Le District or Italian-inspired Eataly, but simply built around seafood. Retail counters will be mixed with communal tables and noshing counters for ‘chowders, raw bars, sushi, shrimp,’ Vongerichten said.” (Also from the Post.) Elsewhere in the Seaport District, we can expect (although I’m not sure when) an outpost of vegan fast-casual phenomenon By Chloe, a new restaurant from David Chang’s Momofuku Group, the first U.S. outpost of famed Milan boutique 10 Corso Como, and a McNally Jackson bookstore.

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BOGARDUS PLAZA
The project to unify Bogardus Garden and Bogardus Plaza has finally started; the timeline has it taking 12 months, so if all goes to plan, it’ll be done in October.

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PIER 26
Construction on Pier 26 is slated to begin this year, and the renderings indicate that it’ll be a very interesting addition to the Hudson River Park and the neighborhood in general. Part 1 of renderings is here; the fish-themed playground is here.

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TWO NEW HOTELS
The Walker Hotel Tribeca, under conversion at 396 Broadway (at Walker), will have room rates under $200, or at least that was the plan in the fall of 2015. Of more note to locals, coffee roaster Blue Bottle is opening a café in the lobby, and we should learn about the restaurant plan soon. Over in northwest Tribeca, work has finally started in earnest on the much fancier hotel at 456 Greenwich (rendering above). It’ll have spa, large fitness center, meeting space, rooftop pool, screening room, and possibly six bars and restaurants.

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