At the corner of Elizabeth and Kenmare Streets at the edge of NoLIta, demolition work began in early March to make way for a seven-story condominium, Mr. Ando’s first stand-alone project in the city, although he has designed a restaurant (Morimoto in Chelsea) and residential interiors in Manhattan.

Sales are expected to begin in April, with prices [...] likely to rise to more than $30 million for the four-bedroom penthouse, according to Mr. Steinberg. — nytimes.com

When CU’s board of trustees decided last year to start charging tuition, its chair Richard S. Lincer claimed that to do so was “the only realistic source of new revenue in the near future.”

The Attorney General’s office will be looking into the decisions that left the university in such a precarious financial situation [...]

It will also investigate the decision to start charging tuition itself, which was the subject of protests, demonstrations, multiple occupations, and, currently, a lawsuit — hyperallergic.com

From time to time, our Omnibus columnists check in to provide commentary on issues of design, policy, and history and their impact on the life and form of the city today. Stephen Rustow’s first column scaled the heights of New York’s skyscrapers to consider “The Privatization of Prospect.” Here, in his second installment, Rustow looks at three intangible forces that greatly influence the shape of our built environment: zoning, finance, and the building code. — urbanomnibus.net

The Fire, Buildings and City Planning Departments are writing rules to govern what are called occupant-evacuation elevators — cars that can, in special circumstances, be used to move people down in an emergency. [...]

Experts who have spent years studying building evacuations believe that approach has become outmoded and is in itself potentially dangerous as extremely tall skyscrapers increasingly pierce the New York skyline. — nytimes.com

Among this new breed of towers, design elements not directly tied to profit are often downgraded or eliminated as overall costs climb. [...] With today’s mathematically generated super-spires, it’s best to paraphrase Mae West: “Architecture has nothing to do with it.”

[...] much as the new super-tall New York condos may serve that same general purpose, these are no works of art. If, as Goethe posited, architecture is frozen music, then these buildings are vertical money. — The New York Review of Books

Calatrava told me that it wasn’t his job to monitor the budget. “It is very difficult,” he said. “I have never estimated anything in this project, because there was a whole team, maybe 25 people, working the whole time on cost estimation and cost control. But I kept looking at those fellows and telling them this is like geology: You only know what you have under your feet when you excavate.” — nymag.com

There aren’t many architects you would believe could hold back seas and save the world from being drowned by Biblical floods. But when you meet Bjarke Ingels, anything seems eminently possible. [...]

If New York has to build 10 miles of flood defences to protect the city from another Hurricane Sandy, why not conceive the barrier as a brand new waterfront park? Climate security as leisure amenity. You can almost hear the standing ovation and all-American whooping in the background. — theguardian.com

Times Square runs on spectacle. Bigger and brighter is always better. And though plenty of New Yorkers wear their criticism of Times Square as a badge of local honor [...] one of the most iconic public spaces in the world. In recent years, as stretches of Broadway formerly open to vehicular traffic have been repurposed as pedestrian plazas, opportunities to activate the “crossroads of the world” with events, performances, and public art installations have ballooned. — urbanomnibus.net

To stay in Chelsea and retain his lease, Mr. Kaplan [of Casey Kaplan Gallery] said, would have required paying twice the rent and taking on a much higher share of his building’s escalating tax rate. Instead, he elected to move to a new space in the Flower District, on 27th Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues. It will have double the square footage, he said, for half the cost [...] The Flower District doesn’t draw the same kinds of numbers but is already on the art-world radar. — wsj.com

Living at land’s edge has always come with a certain amount of risk: storms coming off the ocean can be violent and proximity to water always carries with it a possibility of getting wet.

[...] in three communities on Staten Island, a New York State program to encourage managed retreat through homeowner buyouts has elicited strong interest and vocal support. — urbanomnibus.net