In 2008, non-profit Pratt Area Community Council and BFC Partners finished construction on a six-story, 48-unit affordable building at 15 Quincy Street in Clinton Hill. Now a charter school may replace the low-income development between Classon and Grand Avenues, right next to the border with Bed-Stuy.
Wilfred Realty Corp. has filed applications for an eight-story, 190-unit mixed-use complex at 1880 Bathgate Avenue, in the West Bronx’s Tremont section. The 173,627-square-foot project will include two eight-story components, a western one along Bathgate Avenue and an eastern one along Firefighters Boulevard. There will be 21,820 square feet of retail and 2,460 square feet of community facility space across the ground floors. The residential units above should average 786 square feet apiece, indicative of (likely below-market-rate) rental units. SLCE Architects is the architect of record. The 36,101-square-foot assemblage consists of multiple single- and two-story warehouses. Demolition permits were filed in August. The Tremont station on Metro-North Railroad is three blocks away.
Joint venture PH Urban Renewal, comprised of developers L+M Development Partners and Low-Income Housing Corporation, is proposing to develop a mixed-use tower at 25 Columbus Drive, in the Paulus Hook section of Jersey City. At this point, the project is expected to include up to 750 residential units, of which five percent (37 units) would be designated as affordable, the Jersey Journal reported. The tower’s base would feature a 35,000-square-foot, 200-student privately-funded public school for levels pre-K through first grade.
Office-to-residential conversions are usually expected of ornate, pre-war high-rises, or tall-ceiling industrial lofts. Such conversions are much more rare at mid-century office buildings, particularly ones that had no redeeming architectural value in the first place. Long Island City’s Luna LIC became one of the city’s only such projects when it opened its doors earlier this year. The nine-story office building was built in 1955 at 42-15 Crescent Street, at the foot of the Queensboro Bridge. Over the past few years, Meadow Partners redeveloped the property into an 11-story, 124-unit rental, and sold it to World Wide Group for a hefty profit. The architects at Avinash K. Malhotra Architects, also known as AKM Architects, opted for minimal intervention, rather than a total structural overhaul, which was sufficient to transform the poorly-aged eyesore into the latest addition to the growing residential community around Court Square.
In February, Israeli-Russian billionaire Boris Kuzinez closed on the final piece of a three-property development site on Fifth Avenue in Midtown South for $59 million. Now, he’s filed plans for a 54-story condo building there, at 262 Fifth Avenue, on the corner of 29th Street.
