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DifficultyNext7666 t1_ja82zoi wrote

So while I think they should renovate, I'm not going to fucking live in midtown. Midtown sucks.

I'm not sure many people with money like to live in midtown. I mean there are Apts there so I must be wrong but I've never met someone who lives there. And these apartments are going to be expensive

Edit: for clarity

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ntbananas t1_ja83opo wrote

I agree that midtown wouldn't be my first choice at this stage in life (though I was in the 50s for my first apartment out of college). I think the long-term goal is to make midtown less shitty by having it become more residential, somewhat similar to the financial district.

It will never be trendy (at least not for the next few decades) but it can certainly offer more housing stock for people looking to get more bang for their buck and potentially reduce demand elsewhere.

In summary: not for me, but good luck I guess

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TheAJx t1_ja87nsd wrote

> I think the long-term goal is to make midtown less shitty by having it become more residential, somewhat similar to the financial district.

The goal is really to build houses where there is capacity to do so. 25 year olds don't have a problem catching a cab or taking the bus/subway to go wherever they want to go. I'm sure many of them would jump on the opportunity to live somewhere with more space or lower rents and still be close to all of Manhattan's amenities. When i was 25 years old the distance of places wasn't really much of an obstacle to me.

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DifficultyNext7666 t1_ja8arc2 wrote

Which I get but I don't think the housing will be cheap is my point which I clearly didnt articulate

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GVas22 t1_ja86vr5 wrote

You might not live there, but somebody will.

And those people who want to live in the city and are willing to live in midtown cuts down on demand for the neighborhoods you'd want to live in.

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d4ng3rz0n3 t1_ja8bnux wrote

I liked living in Midtown near Grand Central, because I could walk to my office in under 10 minutes, and get to anywhere else in the city very quickly via Grand Central, or even by walking. My part of Midtown East/Murray Hill (Park Ave in the 30s) was very residential too.

End of the day, having more units online is better for everyone.

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PhonyPapi t1_ja84lwi wrote

Same could be said for LIC not that long ago.

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MRC1986 t1_ja8bk9v wrote

It’s a lot easier to build new residential towers than to convert office towers.

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PhonyPapi t1_ja8fwfn wrote

My point was more there are plenty of places where most thought “x place sucks I’m never going to live there” and now it’s not necessarily the same thought.

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MRC1986 t1_ja8y72x wrote

I agree. But it's a lot easier to make LIC not suck when you just tear down some warehouses and build brand new residential towers such that you create a residential community, vs retrofitting office towers in Midtown.

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TheAJx t1_ja87f9f wrote

I'm sure 20 years ago a lot of people though Financial District sucks and that no one would want to live there either. Since then, the population has exploded from 20K to 60K.

People will live there if there is affordability. The same thing happened with Fidi, which consistently had lower rents and housing prices than the rest of lower Manhattan.

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DifficultyNext7666 t1_ja8alh9 wrote

Why would there be affordability when it'd so expensive to reno this units?

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TheAJx t1_ja8ecno wrote

Renovating the units is at least in part expensive due to zoning regulations, per the article. We should look for opportunities to remove these obstacles where they make sense. This reduces the cost of reno.

Bringing more apartments into the supply has a rent reducing effect.

Financial district was significantly cheaper than most of Manhattan up until a few years ago, despite the expense of renovating apartments down there.

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drpvn t1_ja83x5s wrote

I like midtown. Except for the junkies.

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