The 11 transportation projects on the list totaled $1.84 billion. Highlights include improvements to heavily used roadways in Jersey City, N.J., worth $97 million. Mixed-use buildings accounted for 10 jobs worth $1.4 billion. One notable project, Phase Two of the Liberty Harbor North One Park Vantage Mixed-Use Complex, was valued at $160 million. The project, also in Jersey City, will rise 448 ft and consist of 452 residential units, 7,000 sq ft of retail space and more than 100 parking spaces.

Also in New Jersey, the $86.5-million Gateway Expansion natural gas pipeline project aims to meet the state’s increased energy demand.

Residential developments include the highest-ranking project on the list, the Hunters Point South Phase 2 Parcel C (North Tower) in Long Island City, Queens, expected to cost $500 million. The 1.4 million sq ft of residential and retail space will include 1,400 apartments.

Additionally, the list ranks five warehouses together worth $612 million. Highlights in the category include what’s being touted as a record-size two-story fulfilment center, located in the Bronx. The $260-million project aims to bring same-day delivery to e-commerce shoppers in the New York metro market.

In September 2019, Amazon started its own 1-million-sq-ft fulfilment center in Shodack, N.Y., worth $100 million. It will become the company’s first large-scale distribution center in upstate New York.

Education projects on the list include the $107-million Phase 2 of the Greece Central School Capital Improvement Project in Rochester, N.Y., and a Camden, N.J., high school worth $99.59 million. Notable university projects include the $90-million, 1,200-bed North Campus freshman dormitory at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., and a $118-million renovation of the Carrier Dome’s iconic air-supported roof at Syracuse University in Syracuse, N.Y., which fits within a 20-year plan for developing the physical campus.

Two projects from the NYC School Construction Authority—ENR New York’s Owner of the Year—also are on the list: Staten Island’s $78.12-million New Hungerford School, also called IS/HS 86R Intermediate & High School, and Intermediate School 419 in Flushing, Queens, worth $68 million.

Three projects in the technology, medical/pharmaceutical and research sectors totaled $375 million—notable because, as ENR previously reported (ENR New York 7/16/18 p. NY6), scientific laboratories and offices are a big opportunity for the region. The Life Sci NYC initiative in 2018 set aside $300 million for tax abatements when a developer builds life science spaces and another $100 million in capital spending for an innovation hub.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s $188-million Regeneron Manufacturing Facility in East Bush, N.Y., will include a two-story, 346,000-sq-ft structural steel frame building. A life sciences facility conversion from a former warehouse in Long Island City, worth $67 million, includes a six-story, 91,210-sq-ft building with reinforced concrete that includes laboratory and office spaces.

These projects, along with Zero Irving­—also called the Union Square Tech Hub and worth $200 million, including a $120 million loan—contribute to hopes that New York and New Jersey will become a tech and life sciences hub.  Joshua Wein, managing director of finance at RAL Cos., the developer of Zero Irving, says he believes spaces for tech companies and R&D centers will become a bigger construction trend for the region.

“This RFP became one of several responding to New York City seeing the need to promote 21st-century jobs,” Wein says. “We’ll likely see a lot more like this one.”

The tech hub at 124 E. 14th St., a nearly 237,900-sq-ft, 21-story reinforced concrete building, will yield affordable and market-rate office space for tech firms. It will also offer space for retail and for dining facilities managed by Urbanspace. Civic Hall, a collaborative work and event space, will anchor the center.

Wein says the development is designed to give back to New York and inspire tech entrepreneurship. Partnerships with Civic Hall and the New York City Economic Development Corp. allow the Union Square Tech Hub to dedicate three floors to digital skills training. “We’ll see collaborative spaces licensed out for training to organizations at rents and shorter leases they can afford. Any for-profit organization renting the space must offer either free education or scholarships,” Wein says. “We’ve not seen this before.”

He points to architectural details of the building, which include elevated ceiling heights. Tenants can use the area as a collaboration space. Wein says he’s most proud of the exterior view with its all-glass double height spaces and wide column spacing.

Builders of tech centers in New York City must deal with constrained sites as well as issues related to renovating and repurposing old buildings.

The project team on Zero Irving, which has LEED Gold certification and a WiredScore platinum rating, also overcame special challenges to install the right level of  “connectivity” for high-tech spaces, Wein says.

The site is sandwiched between two large buildings, with the L-train running parallel. Because the subway runs down the roadbed, existing infrastructure is sandwiched between the train tunnel and the building lines, creating “a complex web” of infrastructure “knowns and unknowns,” which required “a great deal of exploratory work throughout the entire connectivity process,” he says.

While conversions remain RAL’s bread and butter, Wein sees more tech hubs and increased commercial development in its future. “Be creative and do something different nobody’s heard of,” he encourages other developers. “And if you’re building tech hubs, ensure you’re giving back to the tech community.”

Source: https://www.enr.com/articles/48890-transportation-mixed-use-tech-lead-top-starts-in-new-york-new-jersey 

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NEW YORK, Oct. 22, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — RAL Development Services (RAL) officially launched Zero Irving, the new mixed-use development that brings to New York’s Union Square 176,000 square feet of thoughtfully amenitized, newly constructed Class A office space across 14 beautifully designed and appointed floors at the top of the 21-story building. The project also includes a technology training center and incubator, co-working spaces, state-of-the-art event space, and street level food hall on the 7 floors beneath. Zero Irving is fully financed and currently under construction, with delivery expected in late 2020.

“We’re confident that Zero Irving will deliver the finest office space offering in Midtown South,” said Josh Wein, Managing Director of Finance at RAL. “Zero Irving brings the trifecta that top tenants are seeking: stellar location with access to transportation, food, and nightlife; newly constructed space in a modern, nearly column-free design, with all the latest tech infrastructure baked in; and the most highly sought-after amenities such as a roof deck with unobstructed views, terraces on multiple floors, and brand new, high-quality event space within the building.”

Zero Irving’s location is practically unmatched. Steps from Union Square Park and the Union Square transit hub, the site provides tenants with the ability to attract and retain their workforce – a major consideration for tenants today. Newly constructed space is also rare in Midtown South, which offers mostly older or renovated building stock. And the ability to host events within one’s own building, in a shared state-of-the-art event space on Zero Irving’s second floor, hardly exists in Midtown South. Roof decks and terraces are also high on the list of tenant priorities, and Zero Irving’s outdoor spaces will provide outstanding views of Manhattan and beyond.

The top 14 floors of the 21-story building will offer state-of-the-art, market rate office space designed to attract industry-leading corporate and creative tenants within the tightest submarket in the country. “There is an incredible demand for high-quality office space in the epicenter of Midtown South and this building will offer something that does not exist in that market. The interconnection with the building’s amenities, programming, and access to a desirable and talented labor pool enhance the appeal of this project,” said Mitch Konsker, Vice Chairman of JLL, who will be leading the leasing effort alongside Benjamin Bass, Dan Turkewitz and Kristen Morgan.

In addition to its central location, some of Zero’s Irving’s access to talent is expected to come from within the building. Zero Irving’s lower floors offer a tech-focused digital skills training center, a tech incubator, co-working spaces, event space, and an urban food hall. Zero Irving is the result of RAL’s successful response to an RFP issued by NYCEDC, and through the innovative ecosystem RAL proposed the project is expected to help create over 500 quality jobs in Union Square, fueling the growth and continued diversification of New York City’s unique tech sector by providing accessible tech training and space for companies to grow and hire within the building. The digital skills training center will span three floors. The center will feature programming from providers such as Per Scholas, FEDCAP, CUNY, and Mouse. Together, these training opportunities will develop a talent pipeline between New Yorkers and the city’s burgeoning tech ecosystem.

In addition to the tech training facility and related uses on the lower floors, Zero Irving will be offering flexible office space within the market-rate offering on the building’s upper floors. The flexible office space, distinguished by shorter terms and lesser credit requirements, is available both for growing companies that have graduated from the incubator or co-working spaces, and for traditional office tenants occupying the building. “Growth companies as well as established firms can certainly benefit from flexible office space,” adds Spencer Levine, President of RAL. “We view the flexible office offering at Zero Irving as an economic boost for second stage companies and a further amenity for traditional companies.”

RAL and its equity partner previously secured $120 million of construction financing from Bank OZK and simultaneously entered into a long-term ground lease with NYCEDC. The project broke ground in Summer 2019.

About RAL Development Services

RAL Development Services LLC (RAL), http://ralcompanies.com/, is a real estate development firm with a three-generation, 38-year track record of success in building complex, high-profile projects nationally and internationally. RAL’s multidisciplinary in-house expertise includes predevelopment and approvals, urban planning, architecture and design, finance, construction management, landscape architecture, marketing and leasing, and property management. RAL operates both as a principal owner/developer and as an owner’s representative, bringing its expertise to residential, commercial, mixed-use, planned communities, Resorts and hospitality, and other property types. RAL prides itself on its dedication to the communities it works with, creating strong and lasting relationships with local constituencies wherever they build, as well as employing union labor and collaborating with MWBE contractors when possible. RAL uses and believes in cutting-edge processes and technologies, but never substitutes them for the experience, ingenuity, creativity, passion, leadership, and professional judgment provided by its people.

Contact:
Great Ink Communications, Ltd. – 212-741-2977
Eric Waters (227798@email4pr.com)
Francisco Miranda (227798@email4pr.com)

SOURCE RAL Development Services

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/zero-irving-to-bring-176-000-square-feet-of-newly-constructed-class-a-office-space-with-luxury-amenities-in-new-yorks-union-square-300943313.html

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In April, after years of planning, navigating the city’s long rezoning process and dealing with pushback from some community groups, RAL Development Services finalized its deal with the city to build a 21-story tech hub on the site of a former P.C. Richard & Son building in Union Square.

SEE ALSO: Talking Diversity, Green Construction and Safety Training with Suffolk’s Charlie Avolio

The project at 124 East 14th Street, recently dubbed Zero Irving because of its proximity to Irving Place, aims to combine a technology training center and startup incubator with traditional office space all under one roof, said Joshua Wein, the financial director of RAL.

“The whole idea behind this building is everything was supposed to be synergistic in different uses of the building,” Wein said, “where we see graduates of this digital skills training center getting jobs and being an employee pipeline for some of those companies upstairs.”

RAL partnered with nonprofit Civic Hall to run a training center on the third through fifth floors, with plans to license out that space to organizations like Per Scholas, which runs tuition-free technology classes, and dedicated the sixth and seventh floor as an incubator. The top 14 floors of the new building — which should finish laying its foundation next month and open in 2020 — will be leased to market-rate office tenants, with a particular focus on technology companies.

“It’s a big step for the city, it’s a big step for the region, and it’s something different,” said Spencer Levine, president of RAL. “We hope that it becomes a model for other cities or even other areas within New York City.”

While Zero Irving’s addition of a training center makes it unique, the New York City Economic Development Corporation has opened or invested in several technology hubs in the past decade to help grow the city’s burgeoning tech market.

“Tech hubs, in various forms, are critical pieces of the innovation ecosystem,” Ana Ariño, the chief strategy officer for the EDC, said, adding the hubs offer startups flexible office space, expensive equipment to prototype projects and access to regional and international partnerships. “These offerings are what makes these physical places the place where the community wants to go, particularly in a city of the scale of New York City. The startup community is essentially a network and it thrives when the ecosystem is strong.”

Founders of startup companies have a rough road ahead of them when launching (an estimate of 90 percent fail) but incubators can make it easier by providing everything from office space to connecting them to venture capitalists for funding, according to Shaun Stewart, the CEO of the New Lab tech hub that opened in the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 2016.

“Starting a company, you have to be in a suspension of belief, it is crazy to build a company,” he said. “We’ve built a support system … that will ensure a greater likelihood of success.”

The 84,000-square-foot New Lab focuses on startups focused on developing cutting-edge frontier tech — like Honeybee Robotics, which built parts used on NASA’s Mars rovers — and a hub like it is especially important because it provides nearly $6 million in equipment for prototype development along with a campus filled with experts in many similar fields.
And there’s plenty of demand for tech companies in recent years, especially after local universities boosted their technology programs, Ariño said. Tech jobs — which includes developers, programmers and information systems managers — surged 38 percent from 2011 to 2017, a CBRE report found.

In that time, a total number of 70,500 tech jobs were added, putting New York City behind San Francisco as the largest market in the country, the report found. While San Francisco still has 74,880 more people in the labor pool, the tide has begun to shift to the East Coast in recent years as more workers want to get out of Silicon Valley — and its traffic jams — to move to New York City, said Stewart.

“People used to suffer through that kind of quality of life,” he said. “You don’t have to anymore. You can have the quality of life of Brooklyn and partner and work with large, interesting corporations.”

The EDC first stepped in to create tech hubs around the city in 2014 when it teamed up with New York University to open a 10,000-square-foot business incubator, the Urban Future Lab, at 15 MetroTech in Downtown Brooklyn. It agreed to provide up to $750,000 in seed funding over two years for it, as Commercial Observer previously reported.

Ariño said the incubator proved to be successful but created problems for some companies that moved out, who then had to deal with navigating the city’s office environment; some ditched the city altogether.

“Companies that were graduating were moving into traditional office spaces across the city but losing the benefits of that community or losing the benefits of flexible space,” she said. “We said we want to invest in true urban tech hubs to continue supporting their trajectory.”

The hubs also make it easier for companies to keep skilled employees, which is something Stewart wish existed when he opened Expedia’s East Coast office in Jersey City, N.J., in 2002.

“We didn’t have any community of support or anyone we knew who was working on similar projects, it was very hard to attract talent,” he said. “Communities like ours changed that significantly. If you’re a five-person startup now you can have an incredible home in Brooklyn.”

The EDC partnered with companies to open hubs including Grand Central Tech in Midtown, New Lab and Zero Irving. More recently, the EDC offered $90 million in tax subsidies for Deerfield Management Company for its $635 million biotech campus at 345 Park Avenue South and started a $100 million partnership with JVP and SOSA to spur the cybersecurity industry in the city, including a 50,000-square-foot investment hub at 426 Broadway, Crain’s New York Business reported.

“There’s an insatiable demand for cybersecurity jobs,” Ariño said. “We want to make a big investment to turbocharge the next generation of cyber talent in the city.”

And some of the EDC’s early incubators have said they experienced huge success. Stewart said the 137 companies to come out of New Lab have had above-average valuations and exits, including Jump Bikes which Uber bought for $200 million last year.

Grand Central Tech — a joint venture with landlord Milstein Properties — started in 2014 with just 15,000 square feet at Milstein’s 335 Madison Avenue and focused on providing rent-free space for people who’ve founded their second or third startups.

“What they didn’t need was a traditional accelerator or incubator,” said Matt Harrigan, a co-founder of Grand Central Tech. “If you’re a repeat founder, they’re just teaching you stuff you already know.

Milstein and Grand Central Tech (rebranded as Company) is planning to spend $150 million to renovate the entire 1.1-million-square-foot property into a tech campus. The building will have 250,000 square feet dedicated to startups — and 90 percent of that is already filled — with 700,000-square-feet set aside for larger companies, Harrigan said. Facebook nabbed a full, 40,000-square-foot floor at 335 Madison Avenue in December 2018, returning to the building after it left in 2014.

“Grand Central Tech is actually a bigger notion than just a technology accelerator,” Harrigan said. “It’s a thesis for how you can fill an entire large-format Midtown building.”

Company will offer startups flexible deals for office suites that give them the ability to grow their company easily without long-term leases weighing them down, Harrigan said.

“We really can take companies and move them through the funnel of growth,” he said.

Both Harrigan and New Labs’ Stewart said it’s important to not just choose any startup and throw them together but to curate them with tenants that can benefit each other.

“I think for a period there was this notion of, let’s create a tech hub! And many were created,” Harrigan said. “I think at this point more nuanced and more niche approaches are necessary.”

Ariño said the city has invested in several other hubs around the city and plans on adding more in the future. And some people want other boroughs aside for Manhattan and Brooklyn to benefit as well.

Emil Skandul, the founder of digital innovation firm Capitol Foundry, wrote an op-ed in the New York Daily News after the news of Zero Irving’s deal-closing calling for similar campuses to be built in Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx, which would make it easier for residents of those boroughs to benefit from them.

“I don’t want it to just be Manhattan,” Skandul told CO. “I think as time progresses we’re going to start to realize as automation takes its toll on the city’s workforce we need to upskill and retool the workforce.”

“Queens resembles the diversity of Silicon Valley,” Skandul added. “Queens can be this next tech hub.”

For Zero Irving, the developers said its Manhattan location will help preexisting training programs who couldn’t afford to be in the borough reach even more people because of its central location.

“These organizations really can’t do it in the center of Manhattan,” RAL’s Levine said. “Union Square, really being the hub of Manhattan, was a great place to be able to create this kind of facility that could leverage its location and have [organizations] only commit to the time they need for their curriculum.”

Zero Irving stemmed from a request for proposals the EDC released in 2016 to create a job creation hub in the area. RAL eventually won the bid and signed a 99-year ground lease with the EDC in April.

The deal called for RAL to pay $5 million to the EDC upfront and was granted three years of free rent, which switches to $2.3 million annually in the first five years. RAL’s plan from the beginning always called for market rent tenants up above to pay for the training center and incubator below, so it didn’t have to rely on any more city help.

“We’re not asking the city for any subsidies here,” Wein said. “We presented a program that is completely self-sufficient where the building itself can provide all these different benefits to the city as well as providing this great 21st century traditional office space.”

Hubba Hubba: Zero Irving and the City’s Growing Number of Tech Hubs

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RAL, developer of the project through a joint venture with Junius Real Estate Partners, secured $120 million of construction financing from Bank OZK and simultaneously entered into a long-term ground lease with NYCEDC.

Meridian Capital Group’s Drew Anderman and Alan Blank arranged the financing.

RAL plans to start demolition of the former PC Richard’s store immediately and with vertical construction getting underway this Spring.

The upper floors of the 21-story building will feature Class A market-rate space for “forward-thinking” office users, with lower floors offering a tech-focused digital skills training center, a tech incubator, co-working spaces, event spaces, and an urban food hall.

The Tech Hub, the result of an RFP issued by NYCEDC, is expected to create over 500 jobs in Union Square.

“This project is incredibly exciting and we’re happy to complete the transactions needed to start building it,” said Josh Wein, Financial Director of RAL Development Services.

“In addition to the multitude of benefits this development provides for the City and its workforce, which have been designed to promote job creation and growth in the technology sector, we’ll be creating the finest modern office building in Midtown South.”

The project secured City Council approval in 2018, the final stage of the ULURP process. Since the Tech Hub was announced in February 2017, NYCEDC and the project’s development team have worked with local elected officials and met with over 40 community organizations to find ways to make the project even more impactful for New Yorkers.

The digital skills training center, operated by Civic Hall, a non-profit focused on using tech for the civic good, will span three floors. The center will feature programming from providers such as Per Scholas, FEDCAP, CUNY, and Mouse.

The aim is to create a talent pipeline between New Yorkers and the city’s burgeoning tech ecosystem.

The top 14 floors of the 21-story building will offer state-of-the-art, market rate office space designed to attract industry-leading corporate and creative tenants.

“There is an incredible demand for high-quality office space in the epicenter of Midtown South and this building will offer something that does not exist in that market. The interconnection with the building’s amenities, programming, and access to a highly sought-after labor pool will enhance the desirability of this project,” said Mitch Konsker, Vice Chairman of JLL, who will be leading the leasing effort alongside Benjamin Bass, Dan Turkewitz and Kristen Morgan.

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NEW YORK CITY—Demolition of the building that housed the PC Richard & Son store at 124 E. 14th St. will begin immediately followed by construction of a 21-story, mixed-use office building that will house the new Union Square tech hub. Suffolk Construction will be the project’s general contractor.

RAL Development Services in a joint venture with Junius Real Estate Partners closed a $120 million construction loan from Bank OZK. Junius is a real estate investment unit of J.P. Morgan Private Bank, a division of J.P. Morgan Asset Management. Its focus is high yielding real estate equity and debt investments.

The developers also signed a 99-year ground lease with the New York City Economic Development Corporation. The New York Post reported the joint venture has agreed to the following arrangements: It made an up-front payment of $5 million and will not pay rent for the first three years during construction and lease-up. Afterwards the annual base rent will be $2.3 million for the first five years. The rent will then increase by 2% every year through the 30th year. Following this period, the rent will be subject to fair market resets. A spokesperson for RAL confirmed these financing terms with GlobeSt.com.

Last year, the city council approved the tech hub following New York City’s ULURP process. The steps were required to increase the as-of-right building height from 14 floors to 21 stories.

For 25 years, RAL will lease six of the floors to the non-profit Civic Hall, which will create a digital training center, a tech incubator, co-working spaces, event spaces and an urban food hall. RAL will lease the top 14 floors of the 21-story building at market rate. According to the RFP issued by NYCEDC, the tech hub is expected to create over 500 jobs in Union Square.

Josh Wein, financial director of RAL, says, “In addition to the multitude of benefits this development provides for the City and its workforce, which have been designed to promote job creation and growth in the technology sector, we’ll be creating the finest modern office building in Midtown South.”

Brokers from JLL who will be negotiating leasing for the market-rate offices say they will be state-of-the-art. “There is an incredible demand for high quality office space in the epicenter of Midtown South and this building will offer something that does not exist in that market. The interconnection with the building’s amenities, programming, and access to a highly sought-after labor pool will enhance the desirability of this project,” says JLL’s Mitch Konsker. He’ll be working on the office leasing with his colleagues, Benjamin Bass, Dan Turkewitz and Kristen Morgan.

NYCEDC and the developers met with local elected officials and over 40 community organizations for input to help the project address the city’s needs. They note the center will feature programs from organizations such as Per Scholas, FEDCAP, CUNY and Mouse and will provide training opportunities.

Community groups including the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (now named Village Preservation) advocated for neighborhood protections to accompany approval of the tech hub. They supported the educational and public goals of the project but protested its development without inclusion of rezoning for surrounding neighborhood streets. They requested limited heights for new developments, removal of current incentives for hotel and dorm development, and the inclusion of affordable housing with new construction for a limited area around the center.

The neighborhood organizations expressed they were concerned about an eventual destruction of the unique character the Village—starting with its now being referred to as Midtown South.

https://www.globest.com/2019/04/09/union-square-tech-hub-jv-closes-120m-construction-loan/

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RAL Development Services and Junius Real Estate Partners last week inked the bottom lines to develop 124 E. 14th St., a site owned by the city since 1968 that was most recently a two-story P.C. Richard store.

The soon-to-come, 21-story tower between Third and Fourth avenues is dubbed NYC Tech Hub. It will include a tech-focused training center and incubator run by nonprofit organization Civic Hall; digitally attuned office space; and a multi-vendor market run by growing food hall outfit Urbanspace.

RAL was tapped by the city to develop the site following a request-for-proposal last year. Although not previously reported, it recently teamed up with Junius, a real estate investment unit of JPMorgan Private Bank, a division of JPMorgan Asset Management.

The team on Friday closed on a 99-year ground lease with the EDC and also made an up-front payment of $5 million.

The joint venture will enjoy three years of free rent during construction and lease-up, followed by base rent of $2.3 million annually for the first five years. The rent jumps by 2 percent every year after that through the 30th year, with “fair market” resets later.

The developers closed on the ground lease after nailing down a $120 million construction loan from Bank OZK. The total development cost is $200 million. Work is to start immediately.

RAL financial director Josh Wein not surprisingly termed the project as “incredibly exciting.”

The long-awaited deal comes at a transitional time for 14th Street, which little resembles the way it looked a few decades ago. Open-air shops that sold goods on the sidewalk gave way to chains and “fast-casual” food shops, and taller buildings replaced low-rise tenements.

The 124 E. 14th St. site’s history is long and winding. The city government seized it as part of a 1968 condemnation when John Lindsay was mayor — but we couldn’t pin down the reason.

Various city actions in 1983 and 1992 divided the land into several different lots, which were developed into apartment buildings and NYU dorms, one of which replaced the old Palladium disco.

But 124 E. 14th St. remained low-rise. There was some community and preservationist resistance to the Tech Hub plan — which required rezoning — over fears that it would accelerate the transition of the Union Square area into a “Silicon Valley” full of tall buildings. But the City Council signed off on it last summer.

Civic Hall will operate an 80,000- square-foot community facility. It will feature a 40,000-square-foot digital skills training center, a conference center and collaborative workspace for tech innovators. Mayor Bill de Blasio praised it as a key component of New York Works, an initiative to spur creation of 100,000 jobs in the next decade.

The office floors above will be open to anyone, but “we’re branding the whole building as a tech hub, and the focus will be on tech,” Wein said.

“We’d love to see tech companies move in upstairs and hire people who graduated from the digital training facility downstairs,” he added. A JLL team headed by vice-chairman Mitchell Konsker will handle leasing.

Wein said the building should be finished by the end of 2020. RAL has developed One Brooklyn Bridge Park, Franklin Tower in Tribeca and Loft 25 in Chelsea, among other major projects.

https://nypost.com/2019/04/08/nyc-tech-hub-to-bring-an-end-to-long-running-land-use-saga/

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The Union Square Tech Hub, now officially known as the Union Square Tech Training Center, has received the unanimous approval of the City Planning Commission. The latter voted Wednesday to advance the project to the City Council, where it is expected to receive a final vote of approval.

Wednesday’s decision follows the approval of Community Board 3 in March, and is the latest step in the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), that needs to be complete in order for the 21-story tech training center to rise on the site of the P.C. Richard & Sons store on 14th Street.

“The Tech Training Center in Union Square will create a new model for accessing New York City’s tech sector – connecting New Yorkers to modern skills training and job opportunities with growing companies, all under one roof,” said Ryan Birchmeier, a senior associate within the public affairs department at the city’s Economic Development Corporation—the agency pushing for the creation of this tech hub.

The 240,000-square-foot tech training center is hoping to open up the tech industry to a broader range of New Yorkers. In addition to the training center, there will also be co-working spaces, and market-rate office space for bigger, more established tenants.

Ahead of the vote today, the EDC also released a new video that details the mission of the building.

Though the tech center has received the support of local residents, many preservation groups have also called for a larger rezoning of the area to ensure that the tech hub doesn’t usher in massive development. The proposal received the backing of the community board in March, but hasn’t gained much traction since.

Link: https://ny.curbed.com/2018/6/27/17510050/union-square-tech-training-center-city-planning-approval

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