Last year, residential development in the South Bronx was booming. This year, builders are looking at their future tax bills – without the 421-a tax break – and realizing that it’s safer and cheaper to build hotels than apartments.
Yesterday, we spotted plans for another hotel in the Bronx, following closely on the heels of an 11-story hotel filed in Concourse Village. New building applications reveal that an eight-story hotel is headed 1164 Wheeler Avenue, in the Soundview section of the southeast Bronx.
The 74-foot-tall building would rise on a parking lot between Westchester and Watson avenues, steps from the Elder Avenue stop on the 6 train. It would have 72 rooms divided across 22,741 square feet of commercial space, for an average room measuring 315 square feet.
1164 Wheeler Avenue, concept building, image from the Reda Group
The developer is Nehalkumar Gandhi, doing business as an LLC headquartered in North Bergen, N.J. Architect Gerald Caliendo applied for the permits.
The previous owners, 9/25 Capital Inc., put the site on the market in January 2015 for $2 million. That price was ambitious, and it ultimately traded hands for $1.7 million last May. That works out to about $74 for each square foot of the planned hotel, versus the asking price of $88 per buildable square foot.
The site could also accommodate a residential building, but it’s hard to make new construction work financially in the Bronx without the 421-a tax exemption.
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Ugly and unnecessary setback.
Correction, just realized that is a massing rendering. I hope that they do not include a setback. Maintain the street wall!
I trust that they plan on having high security level in place at the Wheeler Ave location as well as at the Elder Ave train station. We need to clean up Westchester Ave. and make it attractive for the working class and our retired home owners. Do not bring in more unattractive/unsafe decisions to our neighborhoood.
This is in other words is a shelter. Not in favor of this at all! These decision should be in another location we already have tons of problems in cleaning up this neighborhood / community. Can we please get a break and clean up the BRONX! A nice building for Senior Citizens is way more attractive!
Why not build a Senior Citizens building!