Roosevelt Island is a much more hospitable, fun place than it originally was.
The biggest reason is the large-scale, two-decades endeavor known as Riverwalk, which has brought more than 4,000 new residents to eight new buildings north of the bridge.
The near $1 billion complex developed by a joint venture of Related Companies and Hudson Companies, partners since 1997, will come to completion when the ninth and last tower, Riverwalk Heights, opens to tenants this month.
The overall development includes more than 2,100 apartments, of which 40% are designated as “affordable.”
The new tower at 430 Main Street, designed by Handel Architects, brings 357 units into the mix. Of those, 104 are earmarked for employees of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, which bought the complex’s first building from the developers and has employees at several other buildings.
The new tower’s amenities include a 5,000 square-foot, panoramic rooftop terrace with dining and screening rooms, a fitness center and other facilities.
Related/Hudson also control 83,000 square feet of retail space across 25 stores on Main Street, which they leased to much-needed services such as Duane Reade, Starbucks and several cafes.
Riverwalk brought much-needed, new residential life to the island north of the 59th Street Bridge and the 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.
Related president Bruce Beal noted with a chuckle, “I was younger when we started on Roosevelt Island.” That was 27 years ago.
The first apartment building opened in 2003. Since then, the partners persevered, and the project grew, “through all different real estate cycles, financial crises, and COVID,” Beal said.
Hudson president David Kramer recalled that when the companies were brought together by the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation to complete the island’s master plan, “We didn’t really know each other. Their sense was that our background was mostly affordable housing, while Related was more known for luxury. They suggested we work together. It’s been a pretty successful journey.”
Kramer said, “We had some concerns at first. Would this turn out to be a quagmire? At the time, Roosevelt Island had no real market-rate housing and the buildings then were in the Brutalist style popular in the 1970s. Would people want to come and live here?”
The answer was to be a resounding yes. As Beal put it, “It’s been a great partnership over 27 years.”
New marriage at ‘wedding cake’ tower
Communications and marketing company Orchestra is the parent of eight different companies scattered around Manhattan. By early 2025, it plans to consolidate them all into a single unified location: the whole 26th floor of 195 Broadway, L&L Holding Company’s landmarked “wedding cake” tower in the heart of Downtown.
The 42,000 square-foot lease will bring under one roof all of Orchestra’s components: BerlinRosen, BrightMode Talent, Derris, Glen Echo Media Group, Inkhouse, Message Lab, M18 and Onward.
The firms handle industries including consumer, tech, climate, education, healthcare, real estate and travel.
CBRE tristate CEO Mary Ann Tighe, who repped the tenant with Ariel Ball and Zac price, said, “Orchestra required well-appointed space with best-in-class infrastructure and a turnkey solution to bring its entire network together.”
L&L was repped in-house by Jonathan Tootell, Tanya Grimaldo and Giannina Brancato. The building’s office tenants include Omnicon, HarperCollins, Payoneer and Gucci and restaurant Nobu.
Water Club sinks
The Water Club, a symbol of the city’s glory in good times and resiliency in bad times, is officially kaput. Buzzy O’Keeffe’s East River barge restaurant gave the keys back to the city last month, New York Business Journal reported.
We wrote in June that the once-popular dining and celebration venue was on its last legs after it went dark and stopped taking reservations.
Now, the Economic Development Corp. is evaluating the venue’s physical condition before deciding on what to do with it next, the site reported. O’Keeffe’s beloved River Cafe in Brooklyn remains open.