YIMBY recently told you about some new murals created to spruce up the Essex Street Market. Well, that’s not the only project out there making Manhattan’s Lower East Side a more beautiful place. 100 Gates has been at it for nearly two years.
Back in December of 2012, the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) approved alterations that would go into converting the 12-story, 60,000-square-foot Jarmulowsky Bank Building, an individual landmark at 54 Canal Street (a.k.a. 9 Orchard Street) in Chinatown, into a boutique hotel. Then in 2014, DLJ Real Estate Partners received approval from the LPC to reconstruct the building’s corner cupola, which was removed in 1990. Construction has since been underway on the existing building, as well as a six-story, 9,876-square-foot annex expansion at 60 Canal Street. Now, the owners are abandoning plans for a hotel and have decided to convert the interiors into office and retail space, Bowery Boogie reported. The first two floors will also host retail whiles the upper floors will be leased to office tenants. Lower East Side-based Studio Castellano Architects is the architect of record. It’s not known when the building is scheduled to open.
A rendering for a new Lower Manhattan skyscraper by architect Thomas Juul-Hansen has appeared on the YIMBY Forums. The building is located on the corner of White and Centre streets, at 137 Centre Street, just to the east of TriBeCa. Juul-Hansen’s rendering would indicate the potential for a 60-story building on a 5,100-square-foot lot. The tower would be located on a site that has significant air rights within its own block, with 75,530 square feet remaining atop the landmarked Fire Engine Company No. 31 at 87 Lafayette Street, and an additional 81,940 square feet atop 139 Centre Street. If the existing nine-story municipal office building at 137 Centre is demolished, the available air rights would total 208,470 square feet. Per the EDC, “Negotiations around the 137 Centre Street RFP are ongoing, and this rendering does not accurately reflect the project under consideration. NYCEDC looks forward to announcing a developer selection in the coming months.”
Filings for new residential buildings have slowed to a crawl as the real estate lobby and the construction unions fight over the future of the 421-a tax abatement, but commercial development is alive and well across the city. Yesterday, we spotted plans for a six-story office building at 77 Chrystie Street in the Lower East Side.
New residential developments are cropping up everywhere in Chinatown, but office projects in the lower Manhattan neighborhood are still few and far between. Yesterday, new building applications surfaced for a six-story office development at 10 Eldridge Street, half a block from the Manhattan Bridge.
