[NYguy]

Originally Posted by UrbanImpact

This proposal has even made it to CNN
No new info though.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/15/style...ridge-new-york

Yeah, it's been getting a lot of press. I just wish they would show us the alternative version, without the casino. I can't blame them for not bringing it up. What we know is that there would be no affordable housing without the casino. But this development could still be built with market rate apartments.

This is what they were saying earlier...


https://therealdeal.com/magazine/nat...oloviev-group/

It may be just one component of the proposal, but the casino is the golden ticket at the heart of the development, which would be built on Soloviev’s 6.7-acre lot in Midtown East. Besides the casino, which would be mostly underground, the proposal calls for two residential towers, a hotel, a park and a democracy museum.

Hershman said he’s had more than 40 meetings with community groups and representatives as well as union leaders. He recently revealed that if the casino license is awarded, the project’s residential component would have over 500 affordable units, one of the largest affordable developments in the neighborhood’s history. Soloviev Group would also donate a part of its profits to a community fund “with no strings attached,” Hershman said.

Residents like the project’s affordable component and green space, according to a Murray Hill Neighborhood Association survey, but the casino plans triggered negative reactions, and community opposition remains.

Community Board 6 opposes the project and insists the company hasn’t been proactive enough in its engagement. Its chair, Kyle Athayde, said the group was made aware of the proposal and subsequent updates through news coverage.

“After more than a decade of ignoring the community, the Soloviev Group has suddenly decided to start beautifying the vacant pit with art exhibits and promising the world to the community, which is so obviously disingenuous,” Athayde said in a statement.

The community board said it is concerned about an increase in traffic and security risks associated with more visitors to the area. They say any development should maintain the neighborhood’s residential character.

Hershman said he’s made several concessions to appease the concerns. There won’t be any entrances on First Avenue, and the casino would bus people directly from Grand Central to cut down on traffic.

“There’s going to be development there whether you like it or not,” he said.

“We have the right to build four towers and, under the plans we have approved now, there would be higher traffic volume, less security and less convenience than this improved plan. So they have a choice.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/19/n...iev-group.html

Now Soloviev Group, the longtime owner of the lot, is trying a different tack: the inclusion of 1,325 apartments, nearly 40 percent of which would be offered permanently below market-rate rent, according to the firm. It would represent the largest number of such apartments to be built in the neighborhood in at least a decade.

But it’s a package deal: no casino, no affordable housing.

“We’re not required to do it,” said Michael Hershman, the firm’s chief executive, referring to plans approved by the city several years ago that would allow the developer to build mixed-use towers on the site without affordable housing. But the addition of a casino, which requires the support of local politicians and community members, would make the lower-cost housing “economically viable,” he said.

Without a doubt, we’d have to reimagine the project as a whole” if the casino license is not granted, said Mr. Ingels, the founder of the architecture firm — because of both the casino’s location on the site and its financial benefits to the development.