UPTOWNflavor

We’ve been focusing on events lately here on UPTOWN flavor but that hasn’t stopped the real estate market from continuing to churn non-stop.
As a follow up to the retail space at The Langston on 145th Street, Ripco has released the floor plans of the space. I previous wrote that an insider stated that some major players were moving into the space. Of course, this still hasn’t been confirmed and should only be taken as hearsay until it is confirmed.

I noticed that one of the benefits listed in their package is the easy access to the 145th Street bridge. Coincidentally, the 145th Street bridge will be closed for the next 4 months while under reconstruction. The bridge, a turn of the century swing span, provides a direct route from upstate highways, Yankee Stadium and the Grand Concourse.

As Harlem becomes more populated with residents who own cars, traffic patterns are becoming more of an issue. 7online reported that the 125th Street corridor will be seeing a crack down on those annoying double parkers who slow the commute to a crawl.

Another big story in the headlines is condo conversions. On Monday night Nellie Bailey of the Harlem Tenants Council and host of Harlem Real Estate Review on WHCR spoke with a tenant of Delano Village, now known as Savoy Park, about preferred rents and forced evictions. Delano Village and The Rivington are just a couple of the recent large scale Harlem transactions that are quietly slipping through through the cracks and not garnering as much media attention as Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town. More stories like this are sure to crop up as Realtors delve deeper into Harlem. [New York Times]

Think that churches are exempt from the real estate shuffle taking place around them? A number of churches have jumped on the bandwagon and are singing the praises of renewal and rebirth. At a time when church building funds seem to take years to reach their peak, some churches are using a different tactic for modernizing their historic but problematic buildings. The best known is The Rhapsody on Fifth. The building, formerly the Gospel Temple Church, sold for $4.5 million and has used the money to move to the Bronx. Now the building has units available for purchase as luxury condos.
Gospel Temple’s next door neighbor Mount Moriah Baptist Church hopes to benefit from a similar deal. The 92 year old church plans to weigh it’s options. One option is to gut the entire structure with the exception of the facade and some of the stained glass windows in order to construct a modern church that rivals those owned by national televangelists. The rest of the church will be converted into a 7 story condo under this plan. [NY Daily News]

Mount Moriah is also considering a plan b that would involve selling the structure. The church’s pastor says that it would be a last resort. Other Harlem churches have taken notice of the conversion trend. Gospel Missionary Baptist Chruch on W. 149th Street is being made over as RiverBridge Court.

While Harlem residents feel that time could be running out on getting the best deal for their long neglected property, real estate brokers seem to believe that the upward swing that is heading uptown will only continue.