Besides a few huge residential developments in St. George and Stapleton, most new construction on Staten Island consists of one- and two-family homes. But on Monday, YIMBY noticed an unusual filing for a five-story commercial project at 21 Sylvation Terrace, in a relatively forlorn and industrial piece of the North Shore.
The 57-foot-tall building will host 17,452 square feet of commercial space between Bay and Edgewater Streets, only a block from waterfront. Retail will occupy the ground floor, topped by two stories of offices and a “caretaker’s room/office” on the fourth floor.
Like most Staten Island projects, there will be lots of parking. A subterranean garage will have 35 parking spots, and there will be a large loading dock for deliveries.
The office space might be for the business that already operates on the property, Universal Marine Medical Supply. The medical supply company’s warehouse only occupies a small portion of large lot, and the rest is vacant. Owner Julius Nasso started the company back in 1974, and he appears to have held onto the property since then. Public records don’t show any recent sales or leases.
Nasso has a pretty interesting story, detailed in an interview with the L.A. Times last year. Although he became a relatively successful movie producer later a few years later, he started the medical supply company before he got his big break. The first big film he worked on was Once Upon a Time in America, the epic, three-and-a-half hour crime drama set on the Lower East Side and released in 1984. He built his career by producing martial arts movies, until federal agents arrested him in 2002, alleging that he had used enforcers from the Gambino crime family to extort money from his business partner, actor Steven Seagal, according to LAT.
Nasso lives and works not too far away in Annadale, a neighborhood on the South Shore. New Dorp-based Rampulla Associates Architects applied for the permits.
Like much of the North Shore waterfront, the 21,200-square-foot lot is zoned exclusively for industrial and commercial uses. No residential construction is allowed, so office and retail space are generally the most profitable uses.
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Industrial area, retail might be good for a small diner/convenience store to serve waterfront workers.