New lobby unveiled at 250 E. Houston St.

After nearly five months of renovations, the all-new lobby has emerged from behind the plywood at 250 E. Houston St., the former Red Square here between Avenue A and Avenue B.





The Dermot Company, which bought the 13-floor building for $100 million in 2016, has stated they are "creating a more updated style and fit for the cool East Village neighborhood" with the renovations at the retail-residential complex with the Tibor Kalman-designed rooftop clock.

The main entrance is apparently the first step in this updated direction, which includes some new retail tenants. On that note, as reported in April, Y7, growing hip-hop yoga chainlet, signed a 10-year, 2,000-square-foot ground-floor lease for one of the retail spaces.

Eventually, No. 250 will look something like this rendering...


[Rendering of the all-new 250 E. Houston St.]

Previously on EV Grieve:
Rumors: Red Square has been sold

New ownership makes it official at the former Red Square on East Houston

Apartment listings at 250 E. Houston look to offer glimpse of former Red Square's future

Long-vacant retail space hits the rental market at 250 E. Houston St.

Former Red Square lobby gets the plywood treatment on East Houston


[EVG photo from June 2017]

Y7 Studio bringing the hip-hop yoga to 250 E. Houston St.

[Rendering of the all-new 250 E. Houston St.]

The retail strip at 250 E. Houston St., the former Red Square here between Avenue A and Avenue B, has its first new tenant since the 13-floor building changed ownership in the fall of 2016.

Y7 signed a 10-year, 2,000-square-foot ground-floor lease at the base of the residential building for the growing yoga chainlet's eighth location in Manhattan, the Commercial Observer reported. The asking rent was $200 per square foot.

Here's more about Y7:

At Y7 we do things differently. We give you 60 minutes of intensity combined with heat and strength complemented by deep breathing and a calming of the mind. We ask you to step outside the chaos and embrace the fire inside. You’ll flow along to the latest beats. There are no mirrors in the candle-lit studios. The darkness, the sounds, and the heat will take you to a place you’ve never before been. Join us for the best hour of your day. Leave here feeling strong, clear and ready to take on whatever the city has in store for you. Take a class and never look back.

And a video feature from a few years back...



Not sure exactly which retail space Y7 is taking. There are four vacancies total in this strip of shops, which feature an H&R Block, Dunkin' Donuts/Baskin-Robbins combo, Subway (sandwich shop), Sleepy's/Mattress Firm, China Town Chinese restaurant and a FedEx Office Print & Ship Center. (There's also a dry cleaners, a doctor's office and East Houston Wine & Liquor.)



And we're really behind on updating the gym options post.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Rumors: Red Square has been sold

New ownership makes it official at the former Red Square on East Houston

Apartment listings at 250 E. Houston look to offer glimpse of former Red Square's future

Long-vacant retail space hits the rental market at 250 E. Houston St.

Former Red Square lobby gets the plywood treatment on East Houston

Former Red Square lobby gets the plywood treatment on East Houston

Renovations continue over at 250 E. Houston St., the former Red Square here between Avenue A and Avenue B.

The 13-floor building changed hands for a reported $100 million in the fall of 2016.

The Dermot Company has stated they are "creating a more updated style and fit for the cool East Village neighborhood" with the renovations at the retail-residential complex with the Tibor Kalman-designed rooftop clock.

Apparently now it's time to revamp the entryway for residents... from the old...


[EVG photo from June 2017]

... to the pizzazzy ...



Red Square opened for occupancy in June 1989. Workers removed the building's statue of Lenin from the roof in September 2016. It's now standing on a nearby rooftop on Norfolk Street.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Rumors: Red Square has been sold

New ownership makes it official at the former Red Square on East Houston

Apartment listings at 250 E. Houston look to offer glimpse of former Red Square's future

Long-vacant retail space hits the rental market at 250 E. Houston St.

250 E. Houston is officially no longer Red Square

Just noting that the Red Square signage was recently removed from 250 E. Houston St. between Avenue A and Avenue B...



The 13-floor building changed hands for a reported $100 million last fall... The Dermot Company has stated they are "creating a more updated style and fit for the cool East Village neighborhood" with the renovations at the retail-residential complex.

Red Square opened for occupancy in June 1989. Workers removed the building's statue of Lenin from the roof last September. It's now standing on a nearby rooftop on Norfolk Street.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Rumors: Red Square has been sold

New ownership makes it official at the former Red Square on East Houston

Apartment listings at 250 E. Houston look to offer glimpse of former Red Square's future

Long-vacant retail space hits the rental market at 250 E. Houston St.

Long-vacant retail space hits the rental market at 250 E. Houston St.

Retail for rent signs have arrived along 250 E. Houston St. ... where there have been several vacant storefronts in the former Red Square residential building between Avenue A and Avenue B...



The 13-floor complex changed hands for a reported $100 million last fall. However, according to the Post, the retail space was not part of the deal.

Well, someone is renting it now. The listing at Ripco notes that 4,000 square feet of divisible space is available... this...



I believe this was the former Blockbuster space and assorted Halloween pop-up shops. (No wait — the Sleepy's moved into the Blockbuster space. So this is the former Sleepy's space!)

Anyway! Per the listing, all uses are considered ... and "sidewalk cafe possible due to building setback."

And!

"The Dermot Company is renovating this 130 rental unit building. The facade and storefronts will be refaced creating a more updated style and fit for the cool East Village neighborhood. There is 4,000 SF available immediately; subdivisions are considered. The space is perfect for restaurants, cafes, fitness, lifestyle retailers, and all other high quality uses."



There's no mention of the asking rent.

There are four vacancies total in this strip of shops, which feature an H&R Block, Dunkin' Donuts/Baskin-Robbins combo, Subway (sandwich shop), Sleepy's/Mattress Firm, China Town Chinese restaurant and a FedEx Office Print & Ship Center. (There's also a dry cleaners and East Houston Wine & Liquor.) This listing covers two of the vacancies.

The building opened for occupancy at the former site of a gas station in June 1989. Workers removed the building's statue of Lenin from the roof last September.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Rumors: Red Square has been sold

New ownership makes it official at the former Red Square on East Houston

Apartment listings at 250 E. Houston look to offer glimpse of former Red Square's future

Blockbuster closes tomorrow; last chance to buy the store's fire extinguisher

Apartment listings at 250 E. Houston look to offer glimpse of former Red Square's future

[The current No. 250]

Last fall, Red Square, the 13-floor residential complex at 250 E. Houston St. between Avenue A and Avenue B, changed hands for a reported $100 million.

A letter to residents noted some "very exciting changes" coming to the building, which was apparently dropping the Red Square moniker. Among other things, the common areas would be refurbished.

There are currently eight available units (ranging from $2,900 to $4,500) on Streeteasy.

The renderings that accompany the listings show a luxurified version of its current self... with more high-end retail than what's currently in place...







... and another view of the entrance... with some awesome scalies...



Not sure if this is really the future or just wishful thinking.

The building opened in June 1989. Workers removed the building's statue of Lenin from the roof in September.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Rumors: Red Square has been sold

New ownership makes it official at the former Red Square on East Houston

A look at East Houston before the arrival of Red Square

The apartment complex at 250 E. Houston St. between Avenue A and Avenue B has been in the news this fall. Ahead of the former Red Square's sale, workers removed the statue of Lenin from atop the 13-story building that opened in 1989.

EVG reader James Knapp shared this photo from the late 1980s taken just a little east of where the main building stands now... the site of the one-level row of businesses...


[Click to go big]

In this photo, which Knapp believes is from 1987, there's a view of the gas station that was on the property for 25 years...

New ownership makes it official at the former Red Square on East Houston

Back in August, news broke that Red Square, the residential complex at 250 E. Houston St. between Avenue A and Avenue B, was in contract for some $100 million, according to published reports.

Ahead of the final sale, the statue of Lenin was removed last month from atop the 13-floor building. (It will reign again nearby on Norfolk Street.)

Now a building resident passes along a letter that he or she received from the Dermot Co. announcing the new ownership...



The new owner is 250 Houston Investors, LP, and is managed by Dermot. (A news release on the deal, which didn't disclose the terms, states that "The Dermot Company, in partnership with Rockwood Capital, LLC, announced the joint-venture acquisition of 250 East Houston St.")

The letter to current residents also notes that 250 East Houston (the name Red Square has apparently been retired) "will be undergoing a renovation project that will encompass updating common area spaces, adding amenities, renovating apartments and upgrading building systems."

According to the reader, one of the first actions by the new management was to "cut the staff salaries by 30 percent. The doormen were making around $16/hour, now cut to $11. They were given ONE DAY to accept or leave. Not being union employees, they had little choice."

The reader continued: "Should be interesting to see these new owners try to sell this place as 'luxury' with unhappy employees."

Meanwhile, another Red Square 250 E. Houston St. resident wrote in to say how treacherous the building's elevators are.

Both elevators at 250 Houston have been malfunctioning for more than a year. Shoddy and ineffective repairs are being made as often as 4-6 times a week and have not alleviated severe problems in either elevator.

And what about new ownership?

The elevators need immediate and substantial repairs. The new management will replace them — there's even a rumor that they are going to take both offline to do that.

I don't feel safe using them — and they shouldn't be allowed to operate that way for the next 6-12 months.

The building, which features 130 rental units, also has 23,000 square feet of retail space. According to the Post last August, the retail space was not going to be part of the deal. There are four vacancies in this strip of shops, which include a Dunkin' Donuts, Subway (sandwich shop), Sleepy's (for the rest of your life), China Town Chinese restaurant and a FedEx Office Print & Ship Center.

Per Streeteasy, there are currently two rentals available. A 2-bedroom apartment with balcony for $4,875 and a 1-bedroom unit for $3,000.

The building, the creation of Michael Rosen, opened in June 1989.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Rumors: Red Square has been sold

The Lenin statue, safe for now on a Norfolk Street rooftop

[Lenin's descent last week. Photo by Peter Marciano via]

It has been a week now since workers removed the 18-foot statue of Lenin from atop Red Square on East Houston.

The New York Times yesterday reported that the statue would be on display again within about a month on a Norfolk Street building a 1/2 block from Red Square.

Per the Times:

A construction manager who supervised the removal of the statue from Red Square on Sept. 19 said it had spent that night in a crane yard in Jamaica, Queens. The manager, Peter Marciano, arranged for it to be brought the next day to its new location atop a walk-up on Norfolk Street because he thought it would be safer there.

“I didn’t want him to be held hostage or kidnapped,” Mr. Marciano said. “Those stairs will deter all but the most severe fans of communism.”

The article is accompanied by two cool photos of the statue lying on the roof with Red Square in the background.

Updated 6/9

Lenin has returned. Photos here.

Previously.

[Updated] Where will the Lenin statue's next reign be?

[The post-Lenin Red Square]

Now that workers have removed the 18-foot statue of Vladimir Lenin from the roof of Red Square on East Houston, there's a lot of speculation about where the former Communist leader might end up.

On Monday night, workers at the scene at 250 Houston between Avenue A and Avenue B told EVG contributor Stacie Joy that Lenin, who arrived at Red Square in 1994, was headed to Queens for cleaning and storage.

Meanwhile, a tipster told us that the rental building's original developer, Michael Rosen, has purchased the statue. The building is rumored to be in contract for $100 million.

The Village Voice had an entertaining phone call with someone who answered the phone at Red Square.

“It’s in the same place as Dick Cheney — an undisclosed location,” the man said, adding “I don’t even know how you got this number. I haven’t answered the phone in 14 years.”

The man confirmed that the statue was initially removed to Queens, but has already been returned to Manhattan. It needs to be cleaned and touched up a bit — Lenin’s got some tears, he said — but it will be brought back within a few months.

“It’s going to be cool. That’s all I can say."

DNAInfo reported that the statue was spotted yesterday morning in a truck bed outside the Angel Orensanz Center at 172 Norfolk St. (Was this thing just driving the city all night?) The truck driver said that the statue was going up in/on a nearby building.

And finally, one EVG regular speculated that the statue would end up atop the Christodora House, where Rosen lives on Avenue B. Sure, why not. [Updated 8:10 a.m. — Rosen writes in to say that he has been living in Hanoi these recent years, and they have a Lenin in one of their parks already.]

One other item from Monday night. Apparently several people called 911 to report that someone was stealing the statue. One of the officers on the scene from the 9th Precinct said that he was responding to a call about a "landmark statue being stolen from the building by men with cranes."


[Photo by Stacie Joy]

That would be quite a heist.


[Photo by Stacie Joy]

Updated 6 a.m.

A BoweryBoogie reader spotted a crane crew hoisting Lenin up to the roof of 178 Norfolk St. yesterday ... presumably the new home for the statue. Rosen and Michael Shaoul, co-owners/developers of the original Red Square, are the owners of this 6-story walk-up adjacent to the Angel Orensanz Center.

Updated 6/9

Lenin has returned. Photos here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Rumors: Red Square has been sold

Report: Red Square has been sold for $100 million

The fall of Lenin: Iconic statue removed from Red Square on East Houston Street

The fall of Lenin: Iconic statue removed from Red Square on East Houston Street

Back in August, the Post reported that Red Square, the 13-floor building, was in contract to be sold to Dermot Co. for roughly $100 million.

There's nothing yet in public records to reflect the sale of the building on East Houston Street between Avenue A and Avenue B.

Meanwhile, a tipster told us that the 18-foot statue of Vladimir Lenin, which has stood atop the building since 1994 (Red Square was built five years earlier), was coming down last night... EVG contributor Stacie Joy stopped by for the Lenin removal, which took more then two-plus hours...



















And a view from the roof ...


[Photo via @ElizabethQBrown]

One now-former Red Square resident said that the building's management isn't renewing leases past April. Another tipster claimed that Michael Rosen, the building's original developer, had purchased the statue, which was being transported to Queens.

The building was completed in 1989. And the statue?

Per Ephemeral New York:

“The 18-foot Lenin statue was originally a state-commissioned work by Yuri Gerasimov, but the Soviet Union’s implosion prevented the statue from going on public display. It was found by an associate of [a building co-owner] in the backyard of a dacha outside Moscow.”

[Photo by Lower East Side Lenin Fan]


[Photo by Lower East Side Lenin Fan]

In 1997, Michael Shaoul, a co-owner of the building, told the Times that the statue of Lenin, with his right arm raised victoriously, "faces Wall Street, capitalism's emblem, and the Lower East Side, 'the home of the socialist movement.'"

Updated 9/21

Looks as if Lenin will live on nearby ... on Norfolk Street, per BoweryBoogie.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Rumors: Red Square has been sold

Report: Red Square has been sold for $100 million

Report: Red Square has been sold for $100 million

[EVG file photo]

Early last summer we heard rumors that Red Square, the residential complex at 250 E. Houston St. between Avenue A and Avenue B, had been sold.

And we didn't hear much more about that...

Now Lois Weiss at the Post is reporting that the 12-floor building (with the statue of Lenin on the roof) is in contract to be sold to Dermot Co. for roughly $100 million, according to anonymous sources.

Red Square, which features 130 rental units, also has 23,000 square feet of retail space. According to the Post, the retail space was not part of the deal. There are four vacancies in this strip of shops, which include a Dunkin' Donuts, Subway (sandwich shop), Sleepy's (for the rest of your life), China Town Chinese restaurant and a FedEx Office Print & Ship Center.

According to Streeteasy, there aren't any current rentals available. A look at recent rentals show a studio going for $2,350, and a two-bedroom unit fetching $5,200.

The building, the creation of Michael Rosen, opened in June 1989.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Rumors: Red Square has been sold

FedEx Ground takes on a new meaning on East Houston

An EVG reader shares the following...

Is the reason FedEx Ground is called FedEx Ground because this is a service that involves your packages being left standing on the GROUND on Houston Street?

We have noticed this ourselves... it appears that FedEx is using the former check cashing storefront in the Shoppes at Red Square between Avenue A and Avenue B as a storage space. That's all fine.

Except, as the EVG reader noted, there are piles of boxes on the sidewalk here on a daily basis — often without much adult supervision.





Back to the reader, who travels this route on a daily basis...

Surely this can’t be a good idea. Do things go missing? Do dogs pee on the boxes? One day we saw a set of three car wheels among the boxes.

We wondered what had happened to the fourth wheel. Stolen?

Rumors: Red Square has been sold

A tipster tells us the following:

Red Square has been sold! From what I hear, the ink isn't quite dry. But I think the price was $135 million. The more frightening part of this rumor is that the storefronts may not be long for the world — the new owner will be seeking to build higher on that site.

This is the second time in recent weeks that we heard that the residential complex at 250 E. Houston St. between Avenue A and Avenue B has been sold. (Our other tipster's source was a Red Square employee.)

To date, there's nothing in public records documenting a sale of the 12-floor building that includes 130 rental units and 23,000 square feet of retail space.

Adding to the speculation: None of the empty storefronts along the Shoppes at Red Square are listed for rent. Amona Deli & Grocery closed back in February. The space has sat empty since then. Last week, its next-door neighbor moved away...



One of the other long-empty retail spaces has served as a Halloween pop-up shop in recent years.

The building, the creation of Michael Rosen, opened in June 1989. Here's more from a Daily News article from September 2008:

Red Square occupies land that served as an automobile service station for more than 25 years. Rosen's wife's family bought the property in the 1960s, and, he points out, no homes were destroyed and no businesses were displaced.

Red Square was designed by graphic artist legend Tibor Kalman, a Hungarian immigrant. Its quirky feel has come to symbolize the avant-garde, rebellious East Village spirit.

Rosen has actually apologized for Red Square. (We heard him do so at a Community Board 3 meeting several years ago.) Last we read, he was a nonvoting shareholder in the building and without any involvement in the day-to-day operations.

And it should be noted that there was speculation of an addition atop the existing stores as for back as the summer of 2008, according to this article in the Voice.

In announcing the opening of Red Square in the spring of 1989, the Times reported that the building "includes studios that will rent for $975 a month, one-bedroom apartments for $1,350 and two-bedroom units at $1,900. Mr. Rosen shrugged off the possibility that the rents might be a bit steep for the proletariat, forecasting that interest will stem from young professionals and college students who will share apartments."