Back in 2011, the Wall Street Journal predicted the demise of the Bowery’s Lighting District, a strip of wholesale light stores beginning south of Delancey Street in the borderlands between the Lower East Side and Little Italy. Now three of those shops will bite the dust to make way for an eight-story residential and hotel project at 138 Bowery, situated mid-block between Broome and Grand Streets.
Last month, YIMBY brought you a construction update on the Lightstone Group’s 12-story, 700-unit residential project at 363-365 Bond Street, in Gowanus. Since then, the 429-unit building at 365 Bond has topped out, and foundation work is now underway at 363 Bond, where a 268-unit building is planned. New Jersey-based Atlantic Realty has stepped in to finish construction at the latter site, acquiring the property for $75 million. As for 365 Bond, move-ins are expected early next year, per The Real Deal.
Vornado Realty Corp. and Kushner Companies are proposing to redevelop the 41-story, 1.5-million square-foot commercial building at 666 Fifth Avenue, in Midtown between East 52nd and 53rd Streets, into a 1,400-foot-tall mixed-use tower. According to the New York Post, the building would include a significant retail podium, which will be topped by a slender tower featuring a hotel and residences. Zaha Hadid has been tasked to design, and Kushner owns a majority of the property, although Vornado currently owns the building’s retail condominium along Fifth Avenue, and Zara owns a separate retail portion.
Anti-gentrification activists may have spent a year disrupting community board meetings over efforts rezone Prospect Lefferts Gardens and southern Crown Heights, but new construction in the area marches on. Down by the Sterling Street stop on the 2/5 trains, one developer has filed plans for a small residential building at 322 Lincoln Road, between Nostrand and Rogers Avenues in Prospect Lefferts Gardens.
Staten Island-based RCI Plumbing Corp. has filed applications for six semi-detached, three-story homes at 3333-3347 Richmond Avenue, in the Arden Heights neighborhood in Staten Island. The development will net a total 14,687 square feet, with four homes measuring roughly 3,000 square feet and two at 1,400 square feet. Staten Island-based Lo Bue & Valenziano is the architect of record, and the plot of land is currently vacant.
