Ten years after the city rezoned a desolate, industrial section of the South Bronx waterfront, the area is on the edge of a major transformation. The latest evidence of that change comes with an application to build a 12-story hotel at 82 Brown Place, between Bruckner Boulevard and the Harlem River freight yards.
Chee Wong’s TNE Buildings has filed applications for one five-story, 10-unit building and one five-story, eight-unit residential building at 368-372 East 194th Street, in Fordham, five blocks from the Kingsbridge Road stop on the B and D trains. Located minutes from Fordham University’s Rose Hill campus, the 10-unit one will have 7,965 square feet in residential space, which means units will average 796 square feet apiece. Meanwhile, the other one will have 4,791 square feet of residential space, with units measuring an average 599 square feet each. Pirooz Soltanizadeh’s Jamaica-based Royal Engineering is the applicant of record. Last October, two existing 2.5-story houses were filed for demolition.
Funding issues have stalled the redevelopment of the massive Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx, but a sizable affordable housing project is in the works across the street at 2700 Jerome Avenue. Yesterday, developer Alan Bell of B&B Urban filed applications for a 13-story building with a mix of affordable units, supportive housing and retail on a lot next to the Kingsbridge Road stop on the elevated 4 train.
Nehalhumar Gandhi, doing business as a New Jersey-based LLC, has filed applications for a four-story, 67-key hotel at 646 Gerard Avenue, in the Concourse, located three blocks north of the 149 Street – Grand Concourse stop on the 2, 4, and 5 trains. The project will measure 18,556 square feet in total, and hotel rooms will average 277 square feet apiece. Guests will have access to traditional hotel amenities on the ground and cellar level, and they will also be conveniently located a few blocks south of Yankee Stadium. Flushing-based Michael Kang is the architect of record. A single-story commercial building was filed for demolition this past October.
Plenty of hotels are cropping up in the South Bronx, but new hotels rarely arrive in northern Bronx neighborhoods like Belmont or University Heights. That appears to be changing with a filing for an eight-story hotel at 4729 Third Avenue in Belmont, just south of the Fordham University campus.
