Most of Bed-Stuy’s vinyl-clad 19th century wood frames aren’t long for this world, and soon, two more will meet the wrecking ball. Today, new building applications were filed for a small residential development at 299 Van Buren Street in Bed-Stuy, between Lafayette and Stuyvesant Avenues.
While the city could decide to ban hotels from manufacturing zones, developers have only pushed forward with their plans to build them, even in fairly remote parts of the outer boroughs. Yesterday, new building applications were filed for an eight-story hotel at 38-04 11th Street, at the northern edge of Long Island City. And YIMBY has the reveal for the project, which will replace an auto shop on the corner of 38th Avenue.
As property values skyrocket in the low-slung eastern edges of Williamsburg, small developers are searching for ways to boost a site’s density without spending exorbitant amounts of money on construction. Increasingly, they file their developments as alterations, rather than new buildings, which allows them to avoid building expensive underground parking. And the J-51 abatement gives landlords a break on their property taxes, in exchange for preserving at least 50% of the old building and keeping the new units rent-stabilized for up to 20 years. One of these enterprising developers has filed alteration applications to expand a little three-story brick apartment building at 196 Montrose Avenue, on the corner of Humboldt Street.
A combination of landmarking and unusual manufacturing zoning have frozen Soho in the early 20th century, but every once in a while, a developer scoops up a non-contextual and underutilized property hidden among the cast iron 19th century facades. One of those builders, KUB Capital, has filed plans to erect an eight-story, six-unit building at 146 Wooster Street, between West Houston and Prince Street.
Last year, Hudson Companies filed new building applications for their second large development in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, a 170-unit building at 310 Clarkson Avenue. Now the developer is planning an even larger 250-unit building on the same block at 350 Clarkson Avenue, between Nostrand and New York Avenues.
