Good news for the one Key Food lover who lives here in Forest Hills: It will remain open through the entire construction of the building, which is scheduled to be finished by the Fall of 2012. Oh, and all the stores were supposed to be out of there by last Thursday.
Sad price of progress as businesses cast aside by Forest Hills developer
Good news indeed. Clean up that side with new construction and make the area that much nicer.
ReplyDeleteSince the garage will be underground and it is by the MTA Subway, will the MTA Subway station in that location be seeing any improvements?
ReplyDeleteMTA has not mentioned any such project and an overhaul of that station would be great for the community at large. In Manhattan contruction projects often come with MTA improvements to the surrounding subway station.
Cord Meyer Development at it again, putting a strain on the small businesses, which truly grant soul to our community. No one should be evicted, unless they pose a threat to society. Eviction is without a doubt cruelty. Who needs a CVS and another overdeveloped glass condo or apt house, when we have the banal Windsor, and a Duane Reade and Rite Aid nearby? Cord Meyer = No originality as usual. First the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, & now this. When will they ever learn to work with the community?
ReplyDeleteKudos to Karen Koslowitz for deciding upon legislation to protect small businesses. And... Kudos to the original Cord Meyer including George Meyer for developing low-rise, charming award-winning buildings with great landscaping, which continue to be most marketable and sightly today.
P.S. Why does everyone get the impression it will be called Windsor 2? Do we number buildings as if it's a jail cell? It's far from an English Tudor design. It looks like it could be anywhere, and is not special for Forest Hills at all. It's on steroids.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that Cord Meyer gave the small business tenants plenty (read: years) of notice before their leases ran out. I wouldn't call that an unfair eviction at all. Certainly, those stores, while small businesses, were neither useful nor good for the neighborhood. What-a-deal? gimme a break!
ReplyDeleteTotally not unfair to small business.
ReplyDeleteThere are plenty of existing vacant spaces for small business and they just have to relocate.
Several great locations are available right now On the other side.
There isn't a shortage of space at all.
CVS has a right to be there if people make use of it.
ReplyDeleteSmart for business and smart for people in that area who won't have to travel as far to get to a CVS.
To act like Cord-Meyer did something unfair here is crying wolf. This seems to have been handled as fairly as possible (tenants given years of notice and, I believe I read elsewhere, reduced rents).
ReplyDeleteOne thing to note, the rendering makes the building look much further away from existing buildings. If you go to this corner it is quite obvious the new building will impact the views and light of the surrounding buildings.
Cord-Meyer has already confirmed the new building will be called "Edge of the City Towers".
The comments here about oh its hurtful to small business is totally bull. Vendors just have to relocate. They aren't being kept out of this area if they have viable business models. Cord Meyer did the right thing with its vendors and had every right to do so.
ReplyDeleteCord Meyer has a right to have a major anchor tenant there who will also be paying more than the previous stores who existed there as well as having the affect of modernizing the structure and community.
Just wish it would mean a modernized subway station and they would do like some construction in manhattan where they use the structure to improve on the mass transit.
Looks like the project will be an underground garage and will also add more parking spaces to the area.
For a local developer like Cord Meyer to begin work on a project in the area is a good thing. The Daily News article is quite biased in its approach calling this a sad sign of progress. CVS will be hiring more employees than the other tenants had, never mind the amount of jobs the construction will bring, and we can't complain about more parking spaces coming to the area, either.
ReplyDeleteBINGO! Those previous firms who are able to succeed will move and keep their businesses and will move into one of the existing retail spaces. There is plenty. OTB and Blockbuster spaces anyone?
ReplyDeleteAlso that CVS will bring more people to the community and more shoppers to the area and of course more jobs.
There are still local pharmacies in this area around along with the big boys. But the big chains generally have more supply and more selections and products available and more inventory.
I think there will be even less parking considering the building will probably be rationing off most of its parking spaces to residents of the building. Many residents who have cars and move into the building may not wish to pay the $250+ monthly cost of parking in a garage and park on the street instead, thus making it more congested and difficult to find parking.
ReplyDeleteC-M will have to command a pretty penny for units if it plans to build in the current environment. Anyone moving into the building will have no problem paying $250/month for parking. That is a huge discount to Manhattan pricing, which is how the project will be marketed. No one will move into a Windsor 2 and want to move their luxury car twice weekly parking on the street.
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