The struggling central Bronx neighborhoods of Mount Hope, Tremont, and West Farms are ripe for new construction, and the borough’s small developers are finally starting to take notice.
One developer hopes to build a little four-story residential building at 1779 Weeks Avenue, just north of the Cross Bronx Expressway in Mount Hope. A new building application filed yesterday reveals plans for 10 units and 6,937 square feet of residential space. The apartments are almost certainly market-rate rentals, with average units sized at just under 700 square feet.
The first and fourth floors would hold two units each, and the two middle floors would have three units apiece.
The builder, Edmond Haxhari, is based in Morris Park and appears to be of Albanian descent—like many small developers in the Bronx. He hired Shahriar Afshari, headquartered in Roslyn, N.Y., to design the project.
The 20-foot-wide vacant lot measures just 2,300 square feet, which is typical for properties that housed row houses or small apartment buildings like the two aging wood frames next door.
Haxhari acquired the property for just $210,000 in July, paying $14 per buildable square foot. But he’s chosen to leave about 8,000 square feet of development rights on the table. He may file plans for a second building, but the demand in this part of the Bronx might not be high enough to justify building more units.
This neighborhood is generously zoned at R8, but the only other project we’ve seen here recently is an eight-story, steel-frame building filed on Mount Hope Place in January.
Subscribe to YIMBY’s daily e-mail
Follow YIMBYgram for real-time photo updates
Like YIMBY on Facebook
Follow YIMBY’s Twitter for the latest in YIMBYnews
During rush hour, Mount Hope has the express D train which runs from Tremont, 145, 125, Columbus Circle. In addition, Burnside on the 4 is often used as an “express” stop. In addition, you can easily commute via automobile to New Jersey, Westchester, Connecticut and Long Island via I-95 and I-87. This is existing infrastructure that makes the neighborhood attractive to commuters.