The South Bronx is suddenly booming with new construction. Most of the action is happening along the waterfront in Mott Haven and Port Morris, but investors looking for cheaper properties have started paying attention to neighborhoods below the typical real estate radar, like Highbridge.
YIMBY revealed renderings and reported on new building applications last year for La Central, a five-building, 992-unit mixed-use development planned on an assemblage of vacant lots at 430 Westchester Avenue, in the South Bronx’s Melrose section. The project required approval via the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP). That process was nearly completed on Wednesday, when the City Council voted to approve the proposal, the Daily News reported. Mayor Bill de Blasio still has to sign off on it. Assuming his honor does, construction would be carried out in two phases, with the first phase to be completed in 2018 and the second in 2019. The buildings will range from eight to 25 stories and all 992 apartments will be designated as affordable or supportive housing. The majority will rent at below-market rates through the affordable housing lottery, although 160 will be supportive units. Over 45,000 square feet of retail is planned, as well as 30,000 square feet of community facilities.
West Farms, in the central Bronx, has long been neglected and forgotten by the city. Robert Moses rammed the Cross Bronx Expressway through the area half a century ago, isolating a broad swath of working class communities from the rest of the borough. And the Bronx River, which splits the neighborhood in two, was contaminated by industrial runoff and filled with trash until community groups began cleaning it up the late ’90s. But developers are finally starting to look closely at the working class, black and Latino neighborhood. Mikjor Shllaku, who heads a plumbing company next door in Van Nest, hopes to build a seven-story apartment building at 2015 Vyse Avenue.
Bronx-based Ultimate Seven LLC has filed applications for a four-story, 35-key hotel at 3336 Webster Avenue, in the West Bronx’s Norwood section. The project will measure a compact 10,193 square feet and its hotel rooms should average a budget-sized 283 square feet apiece. Guest amenities include a 704-square-foot lobby, 11 off-street parking spaces, a fitness center, a business meeting room, and a breakfast area. Asher Hershkowitz’s Brooklyn-based architecture firm is the architect of record. The 5,100-square-foot site is vacant and stretches 144 feet along Webster Avenue. The Williams Bridge station on Metro-North Railroad is a block to the north.
Kingsbridge Heights, in the northwest Bronx, remains one of the most affordable and solidly working class neighborhoods in the city. So it’s exciting to see new development sprouting there, on the blocks south of the Jerome Park Reservoir.
