Meatpacking District

"This is an awesome space, an awesome location," chef Scott Conant said, during a packed-house grand opening party at his new digs in the meatpacking district--er, at least, sort of in the meatpacking district.

"It's not really in the meatpacking, it's on, you know what I'm saying?"

The former L'Impero and Alto cook's latest restaurant Scarpetta opened Monday evening in the former Gin Lane and old Village Idiot space at 355 West 14th Street, just east of Ninth Avenue.

"A lot of the core clientele, a lot of Upper East Siders and a lot of people from Uptown, they're not going to be kind of spooked by going too much into the meatpacking. Too far inside of it, it might scare 'em off. But because it's on it, they feel comfortable coming down.

"I looked everywhere," Mr. Conant said. "But I really wanted it to be a West Village restaurant. It's probably one of the last neighborhoods that is pure New York."  read more »

Meatpacking district stalwart Novac Noury has graciously asked neighborhood restaurateur Florent Morellet to move into his underutilized building on Little West 12th Street once Mr. Morellet's iconic Florent diner closes for good because of a huge rent hike this summer.

"I gave him a call yesterday and we may be in talks to continue his stay in my building," Mr. Noury told The Villager this week.

But Mr. Morellet apparently isn't interested, according to the article.

Instead, the flamboyant restaurateur is planning to go out "with a bang," kicking off the “Final Five Weeks of Florent" over Memorial Day weekend, with each following week given a theme to represent a stage in the "grieving process he’s undergone over losing his restaurant....Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and, finally, Acceptance."

Eater is reporting today that iconic Florent diner is now officially on the market.

Winick Realty is shopping the space for $700,000 per year.

That's roughly $58,333 per month -- a substantial increase from the restaurant's current $6,018 monthly rate and quite higher than even the $43,000 estimate that one broker gave The Observer last week.

Read our previous coverage here.

UPDATE: Eater is now reporting that Lansco is marketing the Florent space -- not Winick. Oh, and the asking rent is more like $50,000 per month.  read more »

Restaurateur Florent Morellet called today to clarify something from last week's Observer article on the fate of his iconic Florent diner on Gansevoort Street.

That $150,000 he's seeking from landlord Joanne Lucas in court? "What we're claiming is not really damage," he said. "It's being overcharged."  read more »

Florent Morellet just called to chat about today’s news that his eponymous eatery may, before too long, close its doors for good.

“It’s funny, the Internet, it’s like SARS,” Mr. Morellet joked, referring to the way today’s news has spread on the Web. “It’s going to be a process. I’ve been a fighter all my life—for my rights, people’s rights,” he said. Mr. Morellet, who is HIV positive, told us that the possible closing has nothing to do with his health. In fact, the restaurateur said he’s in fine shape these days, pointing to a healthy T-cell count (over 800), which is updated on a board in Florent.  read more »

We dropped by the shiny new Apple store at 401 West 14th Street in the Meatpacking District today, the latest fiefdom in the company’s growing retail empire.

The new store, which smelled a whole lot like a new car, sits in a spacious, yellow-brick former home to a Western Beef supermarket, encased with black grid, warehouse-style windows.

At three stories, Apple tells us it set a new height record as the tallest store in Apple’s fleet. (Wow!) The previous record was two stories.

The company seems to be imagining this store—the largest in Manhattan—will appeal more to the local crowd, something that would stand in contrast to the tourist-heavy SoHo and Fifth Avenue stores.  read more »

Above is an image shot about a half-hour ago of The Observer's Eliot Brown inside the new Apple store in the Meatpacking District. We will have more on the opening later.

Every ritzy Manhattan neighborhood deserves its own place for ogling expensive, shiny MP3 players. The third Manhattan Apple flagship (out of five) will open at a 52,000-square-foot monster on West 14th Street, thus making the Meatpacking District a tiny bit less hateful. [Apple Insider, via Gawker]

The mysterious-sounding Center For an Urban Future predicts Staten Island will suffer "an economic decline and a significant deterioration in its quality of life." Surely, Staten Island-born rap group Wu Tang Clan does not want their old borough to become a “lower-middle-class retirement community.” [N.Y. Mag/D.I.]

Ivanka Trump, Manhattan’s most aesthetically pleasing real-estate mogul, says she has “thirty-three projects under my direct control.” Plus, in an interview accompanying her very stirring new GQ pictorial, she uses the words “cocky” and “shit.” Wowzah! [GQ]

The Hotel Gansevoort billboards morass might be over.

The Real Estate got a triumphant email on Friday afternoon from the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, which has opposed the billboards:

"We have just received news that the City has ruled that the controversial 8-story high billboards at the Hotel Gansevoort in the Meatpacking District are in violation of zoning rules."

The boards' fate now seems to hang with hotel owner Michael Achenbaum:

The owner of the Hotel Gansevoort can now take down the signs, as we and many area business and community leaders have been calling for, or he can try to correct them and keep them up. Because the owner has said publicly that putting up the billboards were a mistake he would change if he could, now is his chance to do so.

The Real Estate has a call out to speak to Mr. Achenbaum.

UPDATE: A rep for Mr. Achenbaum emailed this statement on Friday afternoon:

"The hotel has not received any notice of a violation from the DOB. The address mentioned in [the preservation society's] letter--352 West 13th Street--is not the address of the Hotel Gansevoort and not the address filed on the application for the billboards (both 18 Ninth Ave.). Until we receive this notification, this is all the information we have available at this time."

- Tom Acitelli

• Colors example of struggling city restaurant.
[NY Times]
• Public Advocate calls for more city housing lawyers.
[NY Times]
• Commercial condo's rotating lobby exhibits.
[NY Times]
• Stuy Town key cards vex religious Jewish residents.
[NY Post]
• New live-music venue for Meatpacking District.
[NY Post]
• Jackson Heights residents to rally against "slumification."
[Daily News]
• Areas of City Hall Park to reopen.
[NY Sun]
• New York Aquarium chooses new exterior design.
[NY Sun]

Did we miss any New York City real estate news this morning? Please send along tips and links.

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• The Malaysians are coming! The Satai at 40 Broad Street, yet another new Manhattan luxury condo, will have "double-height entry doors with solid walnut frames and [a] rubbed-bronze paneled facade." Rubbed-bronze is sexy; so is "Basaltito lava stone borders" in the flooring. [Multi-Housing News]
• Pink-nosed speakeasy fans were horrified to see that 86 Bedford was recently put up for sale. After all, what would West Village intoxication be without Chumley's? We won't have to find out for a long time: the lease lasts for another 79 years. [Curbed]
• Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Landmarks Commissioner Robert Tierney showed up at the opening for the Meatpacking District's new club Theory. Was it because of intricate High Line politics? Or maybe because the club painted Ms. Quinn and kin as "icons." [See above] [NY Mag/D.I.]
• Days are numbered for the L.E.S. indie-rock palace Sin-e (which was immortalized by Jeff Buckley's performances there in 1993). The younger Meatpacking District club R&R is rumored to be closing soon, too, sadly. [Brooklyn Vegan]
- Max Abelson
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Behold! New Meatpacking District office and retail space. This coming to you in September 2007 after the Icon Group spruces up, joins and expands 414-416 West 14th Street.

Terrence Lowenberg, principal at Icon, said the new space will offer 55,000 square feet as a "boutique Class A office building."

The asking rents will be steep: $55 a foot for office space (averages in the West Village are in the $30s) and $200 per square foot annually for retail.

Lowenberg said on Monday no tenants have been finalized and talks are ongoing.

The two buildings now clock in at a combined 26,000 square feet. The Icon Group, which purchased the two buildings in March for $18.5 million, is adding two floors to the top of both and replacing closed parapets with windows for a chic Meatpack-ish look.

All current tenants have been asked to leave, and, beginning next month, Icon will gut and renovate the insides to prepare store openings and office space for next September - all the while hoping to draw deep-pocketed tenants.

- John Koblin

Remember Western Beef? Well, after they moved out of 401 West 14th Street, the building was given a makeover. Of course, with fashion retailers like Stella McCartney, Diane von Furstenberg, Carlos Miele, Puma and Scoop in the neighborhood you have to look your best.

Now, Taconic Investment Partners has purchased the 60,000-square-foot development in the Meatpacking District, and has some big plans, according to a release.

Taconic has received approval from the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission for a complete renovation of the property, including a new 8,000-square-foot penthouse, which will also have approximately 4,000 square feet of terrace space. Taconic has hired architects Cook + Fox to manage this restoration.

Not surprisingly, Robert K. Futterman--who recently bought his own pied-a-terre nearby--was hired as the building's retail leasing agent.  read more »

And speaking of retail space in the Meatpacking District, the New York Times has plenty more today on the subject.

- Michael Calderone

Food and restaurant Web log Eater is planning to deliver a lot of restaurant-interior porn today. The subject: the inside of Buddakan, which, the site reports, is scheduled to open for business on Monday. The "Grand Hall" is pictured in miniature here; they'll be adding 10 more pictures throughout the day from inside the 16,000-square-foot, 320-seat restaurant in the Meatpacking District.

Food is Pan-Asian, by Starr vet Michael Schulson in collaboration with hired gun Angelo Sosa (of Yumcha and the Vongerichten empire fame). The interior is by the great Chrisian Liaigre (Mercer Kitchen and Hakkasan). The reservation line is 212-989-6699.

- Tom McGeveran  read more »