There was a time, a glorious golden era, when Manhattan rental apartments were as abundant as grains of sand at Coney Island, when new Manhattan luxury apartment buildings opened seemingly every day. Those salad days of Manhattan real estate weren't really all that long ago (and the sand-at-Coney-Island thing is obviously an overstatement) but those days feel pretty well gone at this point. The good news about NYC real estate, though, is that ambitious developments -- and the luxury rental apartments therein -- are something of a renewable resource. So it's maybe not surprising to hear about the newest luxury rental development by Manhattan big-timers Gotham Development -- they're not going up with the frequency or pomp of the old days, but luxury rentals in Manhattan are hardly an endangered species. Still, the scope and scale of Studio City, Gotham's new rental apartment development in Clinton, is pretty stunning.
Studio City is still a ways away from being a reality; it was just approved by the City Planning Commission in late January, and at 1.15 million square feet -- and with 1,350 rental apartments slated for the development -- it will take some time for Studio City to become a reality. Gotham Development is promising that construction will start in 2010, though, which makes Studio City a development to watch. The boom in New York City real estate may not be what it was, but Studio City is proof that optimism -- much like the appeal of rental apartments in Clinton -- is an enduring thing.
