The gentrification train keeps roaring its way up to Harlem and Morningside Heights, or should we say "SoCo."

Today Curbed posted two items that spell trouble or progress, depending on your point of view. W Hotel's parent company Starwood is building a branch of its new Aloft brand on Frederick Douglass Bpulevard and 124th Street. Aloft Harlem is slated to open in June 2010 next to an old carriage house that perhaps not coincidentally was long-rumored to be the site of a W hotel before it was recently converted to lofts.

And if the 125th Street rezoning, a luxury boutique hotel chain, and Columbia's expansion were not enough to seal upper Manhattan's fate, brokers have coined a pretentiously trendy name to attract young people to the nabe: "SoCo."  read more »

The City Council is expected to pass a major rezoning of 125th Street this afternoon, opening up Harlem’s historic main thoroughfare to substantial levels of new development.

The move comes as the plan, pushed forward by the city and altered some by the Council, has met opposition from many in Harlem, who claim the rezoning will accelerate gentrification and displacement in the predominantly low-income African-American and Latino district.

Speaking to reporters, members of the Council sought to show the support they’ve received from the larger Harlem community for the plan, appearing with multiple religious leaders and community board chairs as they touted the plan.

Key to their support, the Council members said, was an agreement reached with the city to dedicate as below market-rate 48 percent of the new housing created by the rezoning, up from 20 percent presented in the city’s version of the plan.  read more »

The city's proposed 125th Street rezoning seems all but certain to pass the City Council, as a key Council member, Inez Dickens, signaled her support for a modified version of the plan this morning during a City Council subcommittee meeting. The majority of the Council is expected to follow Ms. Dickens’ lead on the vote, which would allow for substantial levels of new development along Harlem’s main commercial corridor.

The subcommittee members are voting now, according to two people at the hearing.  read more »

Charles Barron, a City Council representative from what he called “the People's Republic of Brooklyn,” stood on the steps of City Hall this morning before a scheduled hearing on 125th Street rezoning and denounced it as an “abusive use of eminent domain.”

“Harlem is not for sale,” he said, prompting cheers from the Harlem residents, community groups, and handful of local politicians in the audience. “We are tired of this city using development as a new wave of Jim Crowism. This place is supposed to protect people, not developers and the real estate industry.”

Craig Schley, the director of the Harlem group VOTE People, said residents “are not going to let this happen.” With the help of civil rights lawyers, VOTE People will invoke a 110-year-old, obscure provision in the City Charter to challenge the rezoning of 125th Street. Subsection 3 of section 200 of the Charter basically says that if 20 percent of property owners in the “affected area” sign a petition opposing the rezoning, the plan needs to be approved by three-fourths of the City Council, rather than by the usual simple majority.  read more »

Late last week, we put up a post about how the Bloomberg administration agreed to exempt a Vornado RealtyTrust-owned site in Harlem from a new height limit to be established on 125th Street as part of a rezoning of the area. The City Council is expected to follow suit.

Getting to such a point, where Vornado would build its 600,000-square-foot Harlem Park office tower at Park Avenue about 40 feet higher than the 290-foot height limit, took a bit of wheeling and dealing.

In order to gain the community’s nod for the tower, and by association the expected approval of local Councilwoman Inez Dickens, Vornado had to work out an agreement with Community Board 11, pledging to give more than $1 million in concessions.  read more »

The path may now be clear for Vornado Realty Trust to build Harlem’s first Class A office tower in decades, as the developer has received the nod from the city to proceed despite a possible rezoning of the area.

Vornado wants to build a tower of about 330 feet, which is 40 feet higher than the height limit in the proposed rezoning.  read more »

The city’s Industrial Development Authority had a hearing this morning on a request for subsides at Vornado Realty Trust’s planned Harlem Park development on 125th Street, which would be home to Major League Baseball’s new television network.

Vornado is contending that it needs $7.8 million or so in tax breaks in order to complete the office and retail project, saying in its application to the IDA that the project will benefit the city. MLB wants $2.23 million in breaks to take 132,000 square feet and be an anchor tenant in Vornado’s tower, saying the development will add scores of jobs.  read more »

Harlem historian Michael Henry Adams just sent over an advisory to let us know he’s bringing the fight over the proposed 125th Street rezoning to the mayor’s doorstep at his East 79th Street townhouse, with plans to protest the proposal at 8 tonight.

Not too far away, and also a target of the protest, Mr. Adams pointed out, is the home of the Planning Department’s director, Amanda Burden, who has spearheaded the rezoning.  read more »

Harlem’s first Class A office tower in decades could be running into some trouble with the city’s proposed 125th Street rezoning, which is currently ambling its way through the public approval process. (We have more on the 125th Street rezoning in this week’s issue.)

At a hearing before the City Planning Commission this morning, the principal at co-developer Integrated Holdings, Derek Johnson, said that if the rezoning goes through as currently proposed, it would force height reductions and modifications to the 600,000-square-foot Harlem Park tower planned to rise by the Metro North station, jeopardizing leases with tenants who have agreed to take space in the building. The approximately 330-foot tower, developed by a partnership of Integrated, Vornado Realty Trust and MacFarlane Partners, would need to be shrunk to come in line with the 290-foot height limit in the rezoning.  read more »