A Washington Heights church has divined the gospel of real estate, selling a portion of its land to a developer, who, in turn, will help build a new church three times the size of the old, dilapidated one.

Of course, the developer gets something out of this, too – in this case, the land on which to build a 16-story residential high rise with 75 units; 20 percent of which will be affordable housing.

North Manhattan Development LLC is now in contract to buy the land from Rocky Mount Baptist Church in Washington Heights for approximately $6 million. That’s a 4,286 percent appreciation since 1980, when the church bought the spot for $140,000.

“We had no idea our church was worth that kind of money,” said Rev. Eugene Hudson in a statement.  read more »

Junkies just don't loiter around the Jou Jou Cafe the way they used to.

“People were lying around, nodding off," as co-owner Edin Musabegovic told The New York Times.

Nowadays, the indie java joint in Washington Heights is dealing with a far more pesky brand of retail parasite -- Starbucks, which moved in two doors down this past September:

“I can’t believe they opened in our own building,” said Mr. Musabegovic, whom the Times credited with making "the neighborhood safe for coffeehouses."  read more »

Four apartment buildings in Washington Heights with 87 apartments total have gone on the sales market for an asking price of $11.25 million. The sellers have owned the five-story buildings at 575-587 West 177th Street for over 20 years, according to a broker with Marcus & Millichap, the firm handling the sale.

Is it any wonder they'd want to sell now?

Discount sale in Washington Heights!

Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services announced today that they have the exclusive listing for what they are dubbing the “Washington Heights Co-op Package.” The package consists of 84 co-op apartments in five walk-up buildings.

The big news here is the price tag: $16 million for all five buildings. That boils down to $190,476 per unit. To put it plainly, it is a steal.  read more »

"We have addressed it," said Mr. Spitzer. "We didn't know about it, we didn't know about it until two nights ago."

3333 Broadway, between 133rd and 135th Sts., as seen from Google Earth

Sounds positively suburban next to the density envisioned by Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn (below): between 436,363 and 523,636 inhabitants per square mile (based on estimated population of between 15,000 and 18,000 residents over 22 acres). That is the density for the whole footprint, including the open space, the arena, and the office towers.  read more »

More Manhattan than Manhattan: Frank Gehry's Atlantic Yards

The Pei Cobb Freed-designed facility will measure 142,000 square feet. The heart center is getting off the ground with the help of a generous $50 million donation from the Vivian and Seymour Milstein family foundations

UPDATE: Lizzy Ratner, The Observer's medical beat reporter, offers this report from yesterday's groundbreaking.

But earlier today, the reformed donut-hound and fast-foodie-in chief trekked up to the airy reaches of Washington Heights to deliver a talk on cardiac health -- and to help celebrate the groundbreaking for New York-Presbyterian's new cardiology palace: the Vivan and Seymour Milstein Family Heart Center. Mr. Clinton, of course, became the hospital's most famous cardio patient nearly two years ago when he underwent quadruple bypass surgery there. He is now the honorary chair of the steering committee for the new heart center.

"I think it's important that we realize that the medical professionals who labor here will, unless we change our ways, labor under enormous burdens because of the complexity and cost of the system we have constructed in America, which leaves huge numbers of people without insurance, spends 34 percent of all health care dollars on administrative costs, doesn't have electronic records, and, as a result of that creates all kinds of financial squeezes for every single serious healthcare provider," he told the crowd of doctors and donors. "No other country in the world spends 16 percent of its income on health care. Indeed, no one spends more than 11 percent, and yet others get as good or better outcomes as we do, because they don't finance their system in the crazy way we do. And we have to do something about that."