In this month's Real Deal, our own Gabby Warshawer checks in on what was supposed to be the "new Park Avenue," a rezoned 4th Avenue whose up-to-12-story buildings and subsequent creative entrepreneurialism would transform the hood. Well...not so fast. "Because of the credit crunch, a number of buildings that were initially planned as condos will now come to market as rentals. The frenzied pace of construction of new residential projects should also slow, due to a dearth of easily developable lots," they write. "In fact, development sites on the strip that are actually selling are fetching far less now than they were just a few years ago." Those creative entrepreneurs can't very well open retail in buildings that don't have retail space, as is the case with many of the new mammoth structures. (Northern 4th Avenue, though, where fewer buildings have been razed and replaced, has a couple of retail hits with Sheep Station and the Ethiopian restaurant Ghenet). Those buildings that finished before the financial meltdown fared pretty well, though. The Argyle (an advertiser here) is 70 percent sold, and the Crest and Novo reported healthy sales, too.
Fourth Avenue on Slippery Slope [The Real Deal]
