The industrial area along the South Bronx waterfront is about to sprout several high-rise residential towers, but development a couple blocks inland may bring another sign of impending gentrification: new artist studios.
Plans were filed last week for a three-story commercial building at 740 East 137th Street in Port Morris. It would rise on a short block wedged between the looming, elevated structure that carries the Bruckner Expressway and Willow Avenue.
The new project would span 6,627 square feet. There would be a contractor business on the first floor, and two artist studios on each of the second and third floors. The building would also include a two-car garage.
Although most of this neighborhood is zoned for manufacturing, this block has several small houses that were built before the 1961 zoning code stymied development and created a low-density industrial area. The property is a 33-foot-wide vacant lot sandwiched by a little brick home and a three-story, vinyl-clad apartment building.
The developer is Gideon Etra, who runs an energy retrofitting business for older residential and commercial buildings out of an office on East 56th Street in Midtown. East Village-based architect Chris Benedict applied for the permits.
Etra picked up the 3,300-square-foot site for $325,000 in November 2014, paying about $49 per square foot of his planned building.
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Well activists in the area are so concerned about the thriving arts community that is supposedly there. I guess this fits nicely.
It is important that places like Port Morris and Hunts Point preserve light industry space. The houses next to this lot could use some sprucing up though.., I can’t imagine that it was pleasurable to live there when those smoke stacks were operating in the area. But yeah the “hip crowd” already hangs out at the Bronx Brewery and Port Morris Distillery. Silver Cup Studios is also opening a few blocks away… So artists will fit right in..