Roosevelt Island is a much more hospitable and fun place than it used to be.
The biggest reason for that is a two-decades-old large-scale effort known as the Riverwalk, which has brought more than 4,000 new residents to eight new buildings north of the bridge.
Developed since 1997 by a joint venture of partners Related Companies and Hudson Companies at a cost of nearly $1 billion, the complex will be complete when the ninth and final tower, Riverwalk Heights, opens to tenants this month.
The overall development consists of over 2,100 apartments, 40% of which are categorized as “affordable”.
The new tower at 430 Main Street, designed by Handel Architects, has 357 units. Of those, 104 are for employees of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, which purchased the first building in the complex from the developers, and several other buildings also house employees.
Amenities at the new tower include a 5,000-square-foot panoramic rooftop terrace, dining and screening rooms, a fitness center and other amenities.
Related/Hudson also controls 83,000 square feet of retail space in 25 stores on Main Street, which they lease to much-needed services such as Duane Reade, Starbucks, and several cafes.
The Riverwalk brought much-needed, new residential life to the island north of the 59th Street Bridge and Tramway, just as the Cornell Tech Complex brought science and services to the vacant land between the bridge and Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms State Park at the southern tip.
“I was young when we started working on Roosevelt Island,” Related president Bruce Beal said with a laugh. That was 27 years ago.
The first apartment building opened in 2003. Since then, the partners persevered, and the project grew, “through all the different real estate cycles, financial crises and COVID,” Beal said.
Hudson's president David Kramer recalled that when the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation brought the companies together to complete the island's master plan, “we didn't really know each other. They believed our background was mostly in affordable housing, while Related was known for more luxury. They suggested we work together. It's been a very successful journey.”
Kramer said, “We had some concerns at first. Would it be a swamp? At the time, there was no real market-rate housing on Roosevelt Island and the buildings were in the Brutalist style that was popular in the 1970s. Would people want to come and live here?”
The answer was a resounding yes. As Beal said, “It's been a great partnership for 27 years.”
New wedding in the 'Wedding Cake' tower
Communications and marketing company Orchestra is the parent company of eight different companies spread across Manhattan. By early 2025, it plans to consolidate them all into one unified space: the entire 26th floor of 195 Broadway, L&L Holding Company's historic “wedding cake” tower in the heart of downtown.
The 42,000-square-foot lease will bring all of Orchestra’s components under one roof: Berlinrosen, Brightmode Talent, Derris, Glen Echo Media Group, Inkhouse, Message Lab, M18 and Onward.
These companies handle industries including consumer, technology, climate, education, healthcare, real estate, and travel.
“The orchestra needed a well-appointed space with the best infrastructure and turnkey solutions to bring its entire network together,” said Mary Ann Tighe, CEO of CBRE TriState, who represented the tenant along with Ariel Ball and Jack Price.
L&L was represented by Jonathan Tootell, Tanya Grimaldo and Giannina Brancato. The building's office tenants include Omnicon, HarperCollins, Peonier and Gucci, and the restaurant Nobu.
Water Club Sink
The Water Club, a symbol of the city's elegance in good times and resilience in bad, has officially closed. Buzzy O'Keefe's East River barge restaurant returned its keys to the city last month, the New York Business Journal reports.
We wrote in June that the once-popular eatery and festival venue was on its last legs as it went dark and stopped taking reservations.
Now, the economic development corporation is evaluating the venue's physical condition before it decides what to do with it next, the site reported. O'Keefe's beloved River Café in Brooklyn is still open.
