Tag: housing

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Bars Culture Dining Events Featured

Serving Up Home, Breaking Ground’s Spring Cocktail Benefit

Since 1990, Breaking Ground has helped more than 13,000 people escape and avoid homelessness. They’re on the streets of New York every day of the year, 24/7, engaging with the homeless to bring them inside and connect them with services to restore their lives. They are the city’s largest supportive housing provider and operate 22 transitional and permanent housing residences, primarily in New York City.

Each year, the organization hosts a spring benefit titled Serving Up Home to raise critical funds for their street outreach program, which helps the most vulnerable street homeless New Yorkers come indoors and find a permanent home. This year’s event is a cocktail edition, featuring top NYC mixologists creating a top-shelf tasting event for guests to enjoy. This year’s edition features mixologists Marcio R Araujo of The Honeywell, Tynan Craycraft of Barbuto, Kacie Lambert of Handle Bars consulting, Thom Mullen of Frankies Sputino Group, and Chris Whalen who works in NYC and LA. We talked to Brenda Rosen, CEO of Breaking Ground, about cocktails and how this event will help Breaking Ground meet its goals.

Downtown: How did this event come to be? 

Brenda Rosen: As a nonprofit, our critical programming is funded in part through donations and philanthropy, and the Serving Up Home event is a vital way to raise funds that build and sustain our amazing outreach program, which is on the streets 24/7/365 helping vulnerable New Yorkers. This year, we’re so excited to have our Junior Board host the event to help build awareness around Breaking Ground’s mission to help New Yorkers experiencing homelessness.

Downtown: What are you most excited about cocktail wise at the event?

BR: Each specialty drink at the Serving Up Home event will be made with our product partner’s Nolet’s Silver Gin, so I’m very excited to see each mixologist’s creative spin. The drinks are all in the spirit of gin-erosity, for a great cause!

Downtown: What does this event help Breaking Ground accomplish? 

BR: The money raised from this event will benefit Breaking Ground’s street outreach program, helping the most vulnerable street homeless New Yorkers come indoors, get the help they need, and find a permanent home.

Downtown: What are some of the support services you offer people living in Breaking Ground housing?

BR: Breaking Ground partners with excellent local social service organizations who provide on-site case management, mental health counseling, medical services, job resources, and more. We also have staff who organize events and other activities in the building to engage residents socially, which decreases isolation, builds community, and helps them re-enter society.

Downtown: How do the transitional and permanent housing locations differ?

BR: Our transitional housing (known as Safe Havens) gives the homeless a safe place to stay and access services while we work with them to secure stable, permanent housing. Our permanent supportive housing is rent-stabilized housing – so everyone has a lease – paired with onsite supportive services designed to help people maintain a home for the long term.

Downtown: How long do people stay in the program? 

BR: Once people are in our permanent housing, they tend to stay. Our resident stability rate is consistently higher than 98%.

Downtown: Can you explain the partnership between Breaking Ground and the Prince George Ballroom?

BR: Built in 1904, the Prince George was once one of New York City’s premier hotels. After many years of decline and neglect, it was restored by Breaking Ground and reopened in 1999 to provide 416 units of affordable housing for low-income and formerly homeless adults and persons living with HIV/AIDS. The Prince George is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In 2005, Breaking Ground completed the restoration of the building’s 5,000-square-foot Neo-Renaissance ballroom – an incredible space from the building’s hotel days. Working with four other non-profit groups, including Alpha Workshops, Parsons School of Design, Brooklyn High School of Preservation Arts, and YouthBuild, the Neo-Renaissance ballroom was completed as a design-build project by Beyer Blinder Belle Architects. The Prince George Ballroom is now an event venue, available for rental with proceeds supporting the expansion of Breaking Ground’s programs and housing development work.

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Business Real Estate

Common Opens Common Baltic, The First Home to Blend Coliving with Studios & One-Bedrooms

Common Baltic rendering

Common Baltic rendering
Common Baltic rendering

Last week, Common — a company offering community-minded shared housing in major cities — announced that applications are open for Common Baltic, Common’s newest and largest home located in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. Common Baltic is the first residence to combine coliving suites with studio and one-bedroom apartments, opening Common membership up to even more residents looking to live in community with their neighbors.

“As Common has grown, we’ve found that more and more people want to live in community, even if they want more private space. That’s why we’re so excited to expand our community-driven living to a broader group of people with Common Baltic,” said Brad Hargreaves, Founder and CEO of Common. “We look forward to opening more homes like Common Baltic in the future, and continuing to build connected residential communities in cities around the country.”

Common Baltic will be home to approximately 135 Common members, including 70 in coliving suites and more in the building’s 67 studio and one-bedroom units with private bathrooms and kitchens. Many suites and apartments include balconies and outdoor space, and all units feature washer/dryers.

The residence features the communal spaces that make the Common coliving model unique, creating a community where people actually get to know their neighbors. Common Baltic includes two spacious lounges designed in the Common aesthetic, and a large roof deck with expansive views of Brooklyn. House leaders on every floor will encourage residents to come together, with programming like book clubs, potlucks, movie or wine nights, and outings to support local small businesses.

Common Baltic will help Common meet the tremendous demand experienced since the company’s launch in 2015. Prior to opening Common Baltic, Common received more than 12,000 applications for an existing 120 rooms in New York and San Francisco. In 2017, Common plans to open additional homes in Brooklyn, Washington, D.C., and other major cities.

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News Real Estate

Join Stabilizing NYC Today At 11:00 AM At The City Hall Steps For A Press Conference

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Join the Downtown team today at 11:00 AM on the City Hall Steps to talk housing market at the destabilization caused by private equity companies.

We are all familiar with the 2008 market crash, but heres your chance use your voice and do something about it. These major corporations disregard the people of NYC when they purchase mass amounts of rent-stabilized buildings at inflated prices, putting our housing market at risk.

Attendees of tomorrow’s event include: 100+ Tenants and Stabilizing NYC, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and Council members Dan Gardonick, Jumaane D. Williams, and Corey Johnson. Join the coalition and put a stop to the City’s housing crisis.

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Business Living Real Estate

How NY Plans to Solve their Housing Crisis

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Much has been made of the housing problem in New York. Available residential property is scarce, and skyrocketing prices are crippling investors and residents alike. Yet there are vacant lots across the city that could and should be used to help ease the burden. Let’s take a look at some of the actions that are being taken to solve the New York housing crisis.


1. Installing More Affordable Housing in East New York

In East New York, the city wants to develop and install 16 vacant lots in townhouses. If construction plans are a go for the affordable housing solution, the newly built buildings automatically become a part of the NIHOP (New Infill Homeownership Opportunities Program), where developers are required to offer 1/3 of the units as affordable housing solutions.

The blueprints on the townhouses would be between 2,800-4,500 square feet and 3-4 stories high. Each townhome will have 3-4 apartments inside. The city wanted Jose Carballo, the architect, and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the developer, to develop the empty lots by 2009. Alongside talks of building 22 townhouses by Dabar Development Partners, the plan fell through during the financial crisis.

2.Modular Solution

Modular construction is the process where modules are constructed in a factory, transported to the site, assembled, installed, and sealed. The development yields a complete and integrated building. It is better construction, and in less time, with less byproduct and waste. This is a fairly recent notion, and it has not been implemented on a mass scale in New York. In Brooklyn, it is being attempted by Forest City Ratner near the Barclays Center. There is not yet a system created to foster this construction on a mass scale. The system would allow developers to quickly and safely build these type of structures.

3. Bare-Bones Construction

Developers also use the core and shell construction. They first build the foundations, bare-bones interiors, exteriors, and the purchaser would pay only for the space available. Essentially they pay for the walls, floors, windows, wiring, plumbing, and ceilings. The interiors of the apartment would be completed later by the buyer. The speed of building is increased, the developer and buyer fewer costs. Small businesses have the opportunities to thrive. Designers, contractors, carpenters, and mechanics would have more employment opportunities, and local hardware stores would experience more business than usual. It would increase the sales of tile, textiles, and lighting equipment.

4. Mandated Turn-Key Solutions

Another solution to fixing the housing crisis in NY is to develop a program that allows the city to provide the land and at a set price, request a number of apartment units to be built upon the land. Firms can then bid on the project, and when chosen, the firm is solely responsible for the execution of project. The city then pays the developer to control the building after its construction, after which, modest rents would be charged by the city. Maintaining the facility and its tenets would be delegated to private companies. There would be no real estate taxes or mortgage involved. In contrast to Housing Authority, the buildings would be better maintained.


5. Vacant Lots

There are a lot of vacant lots in New York city. Many of them sit behind chain-link fences for decades, only cultivating weeds and trash. Controller, Scott Stringer, found in an audit, that there are over 1,000 vacant lots under the city’s jurisdiction. In response to Stringer’s audit, the commissioner of housing preservation and development asserted that the city is aware of the vacant lots, and she said that those numbers are overstated. In the audit that states that there are 1,131 vacant lots, she responded that 310 have faulty but severe infrastructure problems or sit in flood zones and cannot be used for housing development. It was also of her opinion that more than 150 lots are ideal for gardens and the like.

She noted that 670 of the properties are adequate for housing development, and said that roughly 400 of them are currently used for housing. Ms. Been set an aggressive schedule of fully developed within 2 years. Developing buildings require interacting with the neighbors, determining the development’s proximity to schools, libraries, hospitals, bus stops, police stations, fire stations, etc. Putting a development near these locations would increase its value in the real estate market.

While moving to New York was once a matter of simply hopping on Google and typing in “moving company NYC,” people now need to see that the city is taking the necessary steps to make the Big Apple that place where dreams are made of once again—somewhere that you not only want to live, but also somewhere that is actually possible.