Former funeral home looks to double in size with help from 'the controversial penthouse king of the East Village'

Expect to see something much larger and glassy in place at the former Sigmund Schwartz Gramercy Park Chapel on Second Avenue between 10th Street and Ninth Street. Off the Grid, the blog of the Greenwich Village Preservation Society, reports that the owners have applied to make substantial changes to the 1937 building.

Per Off the Grid:

According to the Department of Buildings, an Alteration type 1 application has been filed, which is the most substantial type of alteration. Plans are to “Remodel the existing three story building and add 3 stories on top.” The ground floor will be commercial and the five upper stories will be residential (six apartments each on floors two through four, and duplex apartments on the floors five & six). This can mean anything from the existing building more or less staying in place on the exterior and three stories being built on top, to the existing building being more or less stripped down to its foundations and a new six-story building pretty much being erected in its place. The permit has yet to be officially issued.

DOB paperwork shows that Ramy Issac is the architect here. New York once called him "The controversial penthouse king of the East Village." Issac is well-know to many people in the neighborhood for his work with developer-landlord Benjamin "Sledgehammer" Shaoul.

Meanwhile, check out this history of the Sigmund Schwartz Gramercy Park Chapel at Jeremiah's Vanishing New York.

The next sliver of space for development: The parking lot at 277 Seventh St.

In recent years it seems as if, say, some restaurant gardens and single-level buildings have a shorter and shorter life expectancy around here. Soon, they may all be pricy apartments. Massey Knakal now has a listing for the 22-foot-wide parking lot at 277 E. Seventh Street west of Avenue D... Per the listing:

A 22’ wide vacant development site on the northern side of East 7th Street between Avenues C and D. The site benefits from a curb cut. Currently, there are 10 cars parked at an average rent of $300/month. It would be suitable for a single family or multi-unit development.

And the price for the parking lot: $1.95 million. This space is adjacent to the new Lower Eastside Girls Club building presently under construction here on Avenue D between Eighth Street and Seventh Street.

Something 28,998 square feet or so coming to Cooper Square (and goodbye Cooper 35 Asian Pub?)

Well, the lot that we've been keeping an eye on at Sixth Street and Cooper Square...



...has been sold. Curbed has the details about the all-cash deal for $8.5 million. "What's to come? We don't know! But here's a hint: 'The combined lot size is approximately 4,833 square feet, in a C6-1 zone, with a total buildable of approximately 28,998 square feet.'"

Anyway, all the best to the new owners. As Chris Flash pointed out in the comments: "That corner lot is a sink hole. The building standing there had to be taken down before it collapsed and every time they pave this lot with new cement, it sinks further. Go take a look -- it's very strange...."

The lot's address is 35-39 Cooper Square. ... The address for the Cooper 35 Asian Pub is, uh, 35 Cooper Square... hard to imagine this parcel staying put between the Cooper Square Hotel and the new development...


[Photo via Yelp]

No sign of development sign on empty Cooper Square lot

Back in August, the development sign went up on the empty lot at Sixth Street and Cooper Square.... Never did see a listing for it at the Massey Knakal site.



Anyway, as of this week, the sign is gone...



Perhaps the lot has already been sold (doubtful) ... or maybe a new, bigger sign is going up? Regardless, we're curious about this sign development....

Doom and doomer: More of Cooper Square primed for development

As you can see, a brand-new "For Sale" sign has been hoisted up on the empty lot at Sixth Street and Cooper Square.... the sign just went up, and there's no listing for it just yet at the Massey Knakal site. Add this to the "doomed corners" list.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Your guide to the doomed corners of the Bowery

East Village getting a 60,000- to 70,000-square-foot residential building?

Yowza... a reader just sent along a Q-and-A from the Times with developer Donald Capoccia, a managing principal and founder of BFC Partners, whose projects include the monstrosities Toren in downtown Brooklyn and Schaefer Landing, a three-building waterfront complex in Williamsburg.

This is the passage that we Yowza'd about:

Q. What else is in the pipeline?

A. We have an East Village property. It’s going to be a 60,000- to 70,000-square-foot building. We’re also looking at a hotel deal in Kennedy Airport — this would be our first hotel. Kennedy, believe it or not, does not have any hotels that offer significant conference space.

Whoa! What? Where?!

To be continued....

Former auto body shop REALLY ready for development

One-story structures seem to be a rarity in the East Village these days, which I wrote back in the fall. Take, for instance, 424 E. 10th St. between Avenue C and Avenue D. Sam's Auto Body Shop moved away awhile ago, I thought, and the building was put up for sale. Perhaps another mechanic can open shop? Ha!



I thought this was already a done deal. Another condo rising. Didn't think much more of this until...the property popped up on Trulia on Monday... According to the listing at Massey Knakal:

East Village residential development opportunity, with a curb cut. Currently a vacant, one story garage on East 10th street between C and D. This site has plans for a seven story, 18 unit, residential building, w/ a total of 16,793 gross SF above grade which includes a 3,679 SF parking garage. Prior to the June 30th 421-a deadline, the plans were submitted to DOB enabling the full property tax exemption benefits. Another option is to file an ?alt plan? and develop the property to custom specifications while still maintaining the 421-a tax benefits. This is a unique project for a developer or user and is ready to go.

So I stopped by 424 E. 10th St. for an updated photo. And what did I find there?



Oh, a seven-story residential building. Shh! Let's keep it our secret!

A Delancey update (with special appearances by Jesus and Bloomy, or at least someone named Mike)

Back in August, BoweryBoogie broke the news that hotelier Sam Chang bought the parcel of buildings at 148-154 Delancey for $15.75 million. (Finally, the hotel this area so desperately needs!)

Haven't been down this stretch for a few months...So I was expecting the worst...though...it looks exactly like it did last summer...Which isn't great, but....







For how long, though...Meanwhile! Bloomy, we assume....?



And directly across the street...

"The landscape of New York will be virtually unchanged for two years"

From the Times:

Nearly $5 billion in development projects in New York City have been delayed or canceled because of the economic crisis, an extraordinary body blow to an industry that last year provided 130,000 unionized jobs, according to numbers tracked by a local trade group.

The setbacks for development — perhaps the single greatest economic force in the city over the last two decades — are likely to mean, in the words of one researcher, that the landscape of New York will be virtually unchanged for two years.

“There’s no way to finance a project,” said the researcher, Stephen R. Blank of the Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit group.

Charles Blaichman is not about to argue with that assessment. Looking south from the eighth floor of a half-finished office tower on 14th Street on a recent day, Mr. Blaichman pointed to buildings he had developed in the meatpacking district. But when he turned north to the blocks along the High Line, once among the most sought-after areas for development, he surveyed a landscape of frustration: the planned sites of three luxury hotels, all stalled by recession.

More change coming to Avenue C: "The possibilities are endless!"

Yeah, it's no secret that this building on Avenue C between 6th Street and 7th Street is for sale. It's just when you see the ad for the property in the Elliman window that...that, well, just read the description of this "rare opportunity" for yourself. Then you can throw up on your own shoes.



The building is delivered "vacant and renovated." Like to know what happened to the former tenants...

"Small businesses and low-income New Yorkers keep getting pushed out"

Juan Gonzalez checks in on the LES rezoning plan in the Daily News today in a piece titled Lower East Side rezone plan another Mike Bloomberg boondoggle:

Wah Lee, a slight, middle-aged factory worker, stood in front of the Municipal Building Tuesday vowing a long fight to save her Chinatown neighborhood.
All around her were dozens of Chinese and Hispanic residents of the lower East Side. They held up placards with words like: "Stop Racist Rezoning" and "Chinatown/Lower East Side Are Not For Sale."
They brought a box of petitions with the signatures of some 10,000 of their neighbors - all opposed to the City Planning Commission's new rezoning proposal.
Theirs is a story that has become all-too familiar during the Bloomberg era: another stable neighborhood turned upside down by a massive rezoning.
The sheer number of these rezonings - from Columbia University to Hudson Yards to Greenpoint-Williamsburg to Willets Point, boggles the mind.
City officials routinely claim it's for the good of the neighborhoods, but in the end a handful of well-connected developers and Big Box stores end up the big winners.
Small businesses and low-income New Yorkers keep getting pushed out.

[Downtown Express photo by Shoshanna Bettencourt]

Thinking the same thing: NYU dorm!

Funny, how we all had the same thought a few weeks back when we noticed the bodega on the southeast corner of 14th Street and 3rd Avenue and adjoining businesses were vacated. (The bodega just moved around the corner.) Given the proximity of still-kinda-new NYU dorms...well, we'll let Scoopy take over at The Villager in his column this week:

The corner screams out, “Development site!” and more specifically, “Another N.Y.U. dorm!” After all, the location is right in the middle of N.Y.U.’s E. 14th St. dormitory nexus. But Kelly Franklin, an N.Y.U. spokesperson, told us, “We have not been looking at this site nor has anyone approached us about it.”

I would like to add: YET.