Unarrested development: activity at the long-stalled corner of St. Mark's Place and 3rd Avenue

Top photo by @unitof

Yesterday saw the first sign of activity on the NE corner of St. Mark's Place and Third Avenue in nearly 10 months (aside from the daily additions of wheatpaste ads). 

Workers started erecting a new plywood fence and adding sidewalk barriers ...

The plywood signals a coming-soon restart of the foundation work on the (gulp) 9-story, 61,000-square-foot office building, officially 1 St. Mark's Place.

As reported last month, developer Real Estate Equities Corp. (REEC) received a $70-million loan to kickstart the project.

Last October, workers removed the barriers around the work site... allowing pedestrians to use the sidewalks again — for the first time since the barricades arrived in June 2020. (This after some legal drama involving allegations that REEC defaulted on a $48 million mortgage, per published reports.)

As you may recall, a 10-story office building had been in the works here. In October 2020, the City Council's Zoning Subcommittee voted down REEC's application to transfer air rights from the landmarked 4 St. Marks Place to the new building across the street.

With the air-rights transfer, REEC would have been allowed to build 8,386 square feet larger than the current zoning allows.

REEC picked up the 99-year leasehold for the corner properties for nearly $150 million in November 2017. The previous assemblage, which included retail tenants such as Korilla BBQ, the Continental and McDonald's, was demolished in 2019. 

The project includes nearly 7,700 square feet of retail space and is slated for a summer 2024 completion.