Construction permits pulled at Underground Railroad site

Chelsea Now reports today on the Lamartine Gibbons Home in "Construction permits pulled at Underground Railroad site":

The efforts of a group of preservationists to halt construction work at a Chelsea rowhouse that was a stop on the Underground Railroad recently led the city to revoke the developer’s permits to build a penthouse addition....

Last week, the city Department of Buildings revoked the developer’s construction permit “related to the job to vertically and horizontally enlarge the building,” said DOB spokesperson Carly Sullivan. The plan includes the addition of a fifth floor and penthouse to the 1847 building, with much of the construction already completed despite the fact that it had already been deemed illegal.

In May, the DOB levied a stop-work order on the property, even though ongoing construction work had inexplicably been allowed to continue after the developer’s plans failed a DOB audit in 2008.

For the full article, click here.

According to defenders of the building history, "Although the building permit has been revoked, the architect is apparently still fighting and the owner still has wiggle room to amend the permit before the building is landmarked in the fall."

Beginning of construction at 237 Duffield?

Hotel Indigo at 237 Duffield Street is finally showing a sign of construction activity. Here is a temporary construction office delivered on July 28, 2009:



V3 representative Greg Atkins, formerly of Borough President Markowitz's office, is seen working outside on a very hot day:

Why hasn't ground been broken on 229 Duffield?

Why didn't V3 break ground on the hotel at 229-231 Duffield Street? This is what the NY Post reported on July 9 about the site:

Ground will be broken next week [which would have been about two weeks ago] on a 19-story, 130-room boutique hotel on Duffield Street between Willoughby and Fulton streets, Long Island City-based V3 Hotels said yesterday.

Well, maybe their permits weren't in order. A Permit application processed for alteration to property was submitted on July 24, 2009.

Updates on the half-finished hotel at 237 Duffield

The Brooklyn Paper seems to be reprinting press releases without much fact checking. According to Duffield neighbors are hostile to the new hostel (published July 9),

The builders behind Duffield Street’s half-finished Hotel Indigo revealed renderings this week for another boutique hotel [at 231 Duffield].

The New York Post is a little worse- here is what they published on the same day:

Ground will be broken next week on a 19-story, 130-room boutique hotel on Duffield Street between Willoughby and Fulton streets, Long Island City-based V3 Hotels said yesterday.

Hotel Indigo, also built by V3.... is to be completed by the end of the year.

I contacted NY Post author Rich Calder to tell him that his story has some errors, but the paper did not change anything.

Here is a photo of this "half-finished" Hotel Indigo from May 7, 2009:



Here is the same location on July 19, 2009:



As you can see, the main difference is that the security guard is missing in the July photo.

The hotel at 231 Duffied Street was supposed to take place last week. Here are photos to show that the site remains undisturbed:

Is Hotel Indigo going to be completed this year?

The New York Post, it seems, published a developer's press release without bothering to fact checking. Here is what they wrote about V3 in MORE INN STORE FOR B'KLYN:

Ground will be broken next week on a 19-story, 130-room boutique hotel on Duffield Street between Willoughby and Fulton streets, Long Island City-based V3 Hotels said yesterday.

Three other hotels are already under construction on the same block, and together would bring another 645 rooms. That includes the hip 23-story Hotel Indigo, also built by V3, and new Sheraton and Aloft hotels.

The V3 hotel is expected to open in spring 2011, while the 165-room Hotel Indigo is to be completed by the end of the year.

A few other publications followed suit, including Brownstoner and The Real Deal. The part that is off-base is the completion date of Hotel Indigo, which is planned for 237 Duffield Street. Here are photos dated June 19, 2009. :





Apparently the scaffolding at 237 Duffield has come down in recent days, suggesting that the end-of-year completion date is pure fiction. When the hotel was first announced in 2007, it was slated to be completed at the end of 2008. Here is the Brownstoner post from August 2007.