AvalonBay Communities and the New York City Department of Education’s Educational Construction Fund (ECF) are partnering to develop a roughly 1,100-unit mixed-use complex at 321 East 96th Street, on the Upper East Side. The complex will include rental apartments, two public schools with recreational spaces, and 20,000 square feet of retail space, according to The Real Deal. The development would take up the entire block, which is bound by East 96th and 97th streets and First and Second avenues.
The block is currently occupied by the four-story School of Cooperative Technical Education, the Marx Brothers Playground, and what appears to be a construction staging area for the Second Avenue Subway project. The existing school would move into one of the public schools that’s planned. AvalonBay, who will ground-lease the property from the city, is expected to put the project through the city’s Urban Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP). With a special permit, the site could accommodate up to 956,000 square feet of development.
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Eagle’s eye view so high and stared the target.
“what appears to be a construction staging area for the Second Avenue Subway project” is what was the playground, which was demolished for the Second Avenue Construction. We were promised the playground will be restored with in 5 years, at the time the construction was supposed to be done. 9 years later we learn that they have no plans to rebuild the park, but lease it to developers. This park is zoned as such. Building a building on an area zoned as park it is illegal. A park has no development rights that can be sold or transferred.
I am amazed that no one sees this troubling.
The area is technically East Harlem, not the Upper East Side. The school is a technical school. So then we can add gentrification to the conversation.