Manhattan is a lot of things, but it isn't a terribly big island, space-wise. Which is nice if you're walking, but presents a problem for the NYC real estate developers whose job it is to ensure an ever-growing number of Manhattan rental apartment listings. But just because Manhattan is full of millions of people -- and already home to many thousands of apartment rental listings -- doesn't mean that it's impossible to carve a new neighborhood from one of the last swaths of unused space in Manhattan. Meet "The Linc," a hopefully named semi-neighborhood rising in the hazy post-industrial area around the Lincoln Tunnel on Manhattan's west side. A recent rezoning -- in concert with that unslakeable thirst for new residential space -- has opened up The Linc (we can go without the quotes, right?) to a flurry of new construction residential development. In the Daily News, Jason Sheftell writes about what NYC dwellers can expect to see in The Linc over the next few years. Spoiler alert: the answer is new construction rental apartments, and lots of them, from such blue-chip developers as Glenwood and Related Companies.
The Linc even has a flagship rental listing already in Emerald Green, a Glenwood-developed green rental building on West 38th Street. While we reported here at the Luxury Rentals Manhattan blog that Glenwood was planning an Emerald Green sequel in the neighborhood that we now know to call "The Linc," the extent of the new construction rental development in the neighborhood was news to us. "Two years ago, it was warehouses, empty plots of land, parking lots and boarded-up buildings surrounding a thoroughfare for taxis and trucks racing to and from the Lincoln Tunnel," Shefftel writes. "Because recent rezoning opened the avenues, and some cross streets, to residential buildings, huge rental projects from TF Cornerstone (835 units), Glenwood (568 units), Larry Silverstein (1,200-plus units) and Related Companies (5,000 apartments) mean the biggest developers in the world will anchor the area that outside of rush hour and on weekends feels more like a half-built office park in the city’s hinterlands (think Bridgeport, Conn.) than an emerging corner of Manhattan."
For those not in the know about crumbling tri-state area metropolises, the proper response to the Bridgeport, Connecticut comparison is: mee-owch. But while The Linc remains kind of rough around the edges, it wouldn't be surprising to see its fortunes rise in years to come, especially given the coming expansion of the 7 subway line into the west 30s, which would link The Linc to the MTA system as never before. After all, it's not like there's much more space for new neighborhoods in Manhattan.
