Development is on fire in the Mott Haven section of the South Bronx, but yesterday’s filings brought the largest ground-up project the neighborhood has seen in decades. Williamsburg-based builder Cheskel Schwimmer filed new building applications for a 25-story residential development at 198 East 135th Street, next the Major Deegan Expressway, the Park Avenue Bridge, and the Third Avenue Bridge.
NoMad-based Bell Urban, LLC, has filed applications for a 12-story, 126-unit affordable housing project at 294 East 162nd Street, in Melrose, right around the corner from the neighborhood’s Metro North station, and seven blocks from the 4 train at Yankee Stadium. The building will total 117,398 square feet, which works out to an average unit of 932 square feet. Midtown South-based Dattner Architects is the applicant of record, and two 2.5-story, wood-framed homes were demolished in 2014.
The once-blighted neighborhoods of Melrose and Morrisania in the South Bronx are littered with vacant lots, but new affordable housing developments are quickly springing up to fill the holes. Nonprofit SoBro Development Corporation is moving forward with plans for an eight-story affordable and supportive building at 481 East 164th Street, on the corner of Washington Avenue in Morrisania.
The South Bronx is finally seeing the first glimpses of large, market-rate development, and one hotel developer has taken the plunge by filing new building applications for a 13-story apartment building at 477 Gerard Avenue in Mott Haven, next to his under construction hotel at 500 Exterior Street.
Mohammad Badaly, head of Mount Vernon-based Badaly Architects, has filed applications for a five-story, 13-unit mixed-use building at 3190 Riverdale Avenue, in Kingsbridge, five blocks from the 1 train’s stop at 231st Street. The building will measure 19,628 square feet in total, and will feature 4,657 square feet of heath care facilities on two below-grade levels. Residential units above will measure 1,150 square feet apiece, and the existing two-story house passed pre-demolition inspection this past July.
