Week 6

Hello everyone, welcome back to my senior project blog! This week for my senior project I continued my onsite placement, research, and final paper.

During my time on-site I took a canvassing tour of the M-zone (manufacturing district) to look at buildings that would be eligible to rezone under the MSMX rezoning proposal. The buildings that I toured  are primarily commercial buildings listed by B-6 Real Estate Advisors as well as some residential spaces. With the opportunity to view the interiors of these currently vacant and gutted spaces, I chose to focus on the floor plan with the intent of determining the applicability of a rezoning renovation. Through this I hope to estimate the number of buildings and spaces that would undergo a rezoning as well as the number of potential units produced.

The first property I visited was 18W 39th St., an office building previously leased by Lord&Taylor, that is currently left vacant and under new ownership. The building features a ground floor (now being renovated for retail proposal) and 10 floors of commercial space. A key feature that the building has is a side elevator. Having an elevator located on the side of the building as opposed to one in the center, is common amongst most office buildings but is not featured in many large-scale residential apartments as it requires more floor space to be allocated for hallways breaking up the space. 

A primary feature that plays a role in determining if a building should be converted is the number and location of windows. Windows play a critical role in determining the possibility of creating housing as their presence is legally required when creating bedrooms. 18W 39th St. is representative of many of the office buildings in Midtown South that only have windows on the facade due to adjacent buildings blocking light access. This window shortage limits the number of possible bedrooms, affecting the number of units produced. Office buildings in Midtown south do not fit the frame of the high-density residential properties that the mayor’s office hopes to create. Instead a loft-style floor plan would be more applicable.

In the upcoming week I will take a look at other properties and continue my analysis. Thank you for your time.