Yesterday at Isabella’s at Columbus and 77th, we—along with new Department of Consumer Affairs commissioner Julie Menin and Manhattan Borough president Gale Brewer—joined the Columbus Avenue BID’s 15th annual meeting. (BID president Doug Griebel, who also owns Rosa Mexicano restaurants, is running the show in the background.) Julie says the de Blasio administration is reducing burdensome fines for small businesses, including allowing business owners to choose the language in which inspections are conducted and posting the inspection checklist online for the first time ever.
We also snapped deputy mayor for Housing and Economic Development Alicia Glen at the Long Island City Partnership’s recent Long Island Summit. The biggest news: As a little girl, Alicia was on Sesame Street (so she could tell you that the way to get to Sesame Street is to take the R train to Steinway and walk to Kaufman Astoria Studios). She says 7,500 resi units have delivered in LIC in the past seven years, and another 12,000 are in the pipeline. She’s working with her budget to continue development at Hunter’s Point South, where 5,000 units are planned, 60% of them for moderate- and middle-income workers.
NYC Economic Development Corp president Kyle Kimball, whom we also snapped at the LIC Summit with Werwaiss & Co's Gretchen Werwaiss, championed Long Island City as a prime option for companies to relocate, considering it’s an interesting place for employees to live and it's just one or two stops from Grand Central for Metro-North-riding execs. The office users who come to LIC tend to go for interesting, M-zoned buildings like the Falchi Building, he says, so industrial has become all about preservation. He has not accepted that as a permanent reality, though, and still plans to mull zoning and incentives to encourage industrial.
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