This afternoon, the New York Times has the story: details of the Seward Park Project, set to be announced on the Lower East Side tomorrow morning.
Here are excerpts from the story:
…the Bloomberg administration plans to announce on Wednesday that it has selected developers to erect a complex called Essex Crossing at the location, long known as the Seward Park urban renewal area. The development would include retail markets, restaurants, office space, a movie theater, parks, an Andy Warhol Museum and 1,000 apartments. Half of the apartments would be for low-, moderate- and middle-income families. Designed by SHoP Architects and Beyer Blinder Belle, the glassy, six-acre complex would be built over the next decade by a consortium on nine city-owned lots… The developers selected for the project — L&M Development Partners, BFC Partners, Taconic Investment Partners and Grand Street Settlement — won out over some of the city’s most prominent builders. In return, the developers will pay the city $180 million and start the first building within 18 months… One of the winning developers, Ron Moelis, chairman of L&M Development Partners, said, “It’s a big enough site that we can create a community that has all the aspects of what one wants in a neighborhood: a mix of housing, retail, entertainment, food, job training and office space that will serve both low income people who live there and newcomers to the area.
