BID expansion will double number of properties receiving sanitation and security assistance. The Planning Commission unanimously approved an application by the Village Alliance Business Improvement District Management Association and the Department of Small Business Services for expansion of the Village Alliance BID, originally established in 1993.

The existing BID, which comprises 129 predominantly mixed-use properties, is currently bounded by Sixth and Second Avenues to the west and east, West 4th Street to the south, and West 8th Street and Astor Place to the north. The expanded BID, which will represent a total of 315 properties and 430 businesses, will extend coverage along Sixth Avenue and University Place to Thirteenth Street, and along Broadway to East Tenth Street.

Times Square garage permitted to open up to public and increase capacity to 386 spaces. Owners of the Viacom Building, located at 1515 Broadway between West 44th and West 45th Streets in Times Square, applied to City Planning in 2005 to convert the building’s existing 225-space accessory parking garage into a public parking garage and to increase its capacity by 161 spaces and 19 reservoir spaces. The garage would be fully attended and access would remain on West 44th Street. No new construction would be needed to increase the garage’s capacity to a total of 386 spaces.

The 54-story Viacom Building contains over 1.7 million square feet of floor area used primarily as office space. It also contains MTV’s television studios, the 1,700-seat Minskoff Theater and the 2,100-seat Nokia Times Square, formerly the Loew’s Astor Plaza movie theater. The existing garage was originally authorized as an accessory parking garage for tenants.

Manhattan College and Pathmark partner on new supermarket and campus parking garage. On June 21, 2006, the Planning Commission unanimously approved an application made by Manhattan College to permit construction of a six-level parking garage/supermarket structure on Broadway and Manhattan College Parkway in the Bronx. The Commission also approved a revocable consent to allow a pedestrian bridge to connect the market and garage to the Manhattan College campus.

The college partnered with the Pathmark supermarket chain to fund the project which will include a 72,734-square-foot, ground-floor supermarket, 187 parking spaces on the second floor for customers, and 738 parking spaces on the remaining four floors for the campus community. The development would be located on an 85,000-square-foot lot owned by Manhattan College and currently used as a maintenance facility and parking lot that fronts both Broadway and Manhattan College Parkway. Pedestrian and car access to the supermarket would be on Broadway. The Manhattan College parking lot would be accessible from Manhattan College Parkway.

Twelve-story facility will house 263 former homeless and provide on-site supportive services. On June 29, 2006, HPD and Common Ground, a not-for-profit that provides housing services for the homeless, obtained City Council approval for a 12-story housing facility to be located on East Houston at Pitt Street in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The site contains the Milliken Clubhouse building, a former Boys’ Club of New York location, which has sat vacant since 2003.

Common Ground currently operates four housing facilities for the formerly homeless in Manhattan and has a fifth facility under construction in downtown Brooklyn. Its Times Square Hotel facility at West 43rd Street and Eighth Avenue houses 652 people and is the largest homeless housing facility in the country. All its facilities provide onsite social services, job training, and medical facilities, and target persons considered by Common Ground to be most at risk for homelessness, like children leaving foster care and substance abusers.

At the East Houston site, Common Ground proposed to demolish the Milliken Clubhouse and construct a 99,158-square-foot project for 263 persons, requiring a special permit to exceed the permitted floor area by 46,526 sq.ft. The 12- story facility will have 45 suites for formerly homeless youth and former foster care children on the second and third floors, and 207 individual rooms for adults with AIDS, mental illness and substance abuse problems on the fourth through twelfth stories. It will also house onsite job training, educational programs and physical and mental health medical facilities.

Use of marine terminal as auto cargo processing facility approved after lease term reduced. On June 29, 2006, the City Council approved a lease submitted by the Economic Development Corporation and the Department of Small Business Services for 74 acres of the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, an 88-acre Brooklyn waterfront parcel spanning from 29th to 39th Streets and 2nd Avenue to the Gowanus Bay.

Currently used for parking and storage, Axis Group, Inc. would develop and operate, within the first five years of the lease, a vehicle processing facility responsible for 95,000 vehicles per year. The EDC originally proposed a 20-year lease term with two five-year options and required conversion of the property to a container port facility by the end of the lease term. The EDC planned to invest $24 million to add to Axis’ $12 million investment to improve and maintain the site.

Lower Manhattan to get 630- seat primary/intermediate school. The City Council unanimously approved the New York School Construction Authority’s proposal for a new 100,000-square-foot primary/ intermediate school to be located within Forest City Ratner’s proposed residential development on a site at Beekman, Gold, Spruce and Nassau Streets in lower Manhattan. Currently, the 44,532- square-foot site contains a privately- owned surface parking lot, which Forest City will replace with its 75-story condominium and rental apartment building.

The City will hold a condominium interest in the first five floors of Forest City Ratner’s building, which will accommodate a 630-seat school for pre-kindergarten through eighth grade students in Community School District No. 2. The proposed design will meet all of the Department of Education’s standard requirements, including an interior gym and full-size cafeteria.