IF the
rumors are accurate, then the BP station and MRM Auto Repair at 24 Second Ave. at East First Street will close this summer to eventually make way for something the area doesn't seem to need — a boutique hotel.
Again, this is only a rumor… traced to workers at the station. There's nothing on file yet with the DOB for this address.
Of course, news of BP's closing wouldn't be so shocking, after all.
On Tuesday, WYNC featured a story titled
"Say Goodbye to Manhattan's Gas Stations."
Per the article:
In 2004, the borough had more than 60 places to fill up, but now there are just 39. Fuel prices and consolidation are driving the nationwide trend, but in Manhattan, it's all about real estate.
"It's kind of like the gas station has a red flag on it that says: 'Call me. I'm the next site,'" said Adelaide Polsinelli, a broker with the real estate investment firm Eastern Consolidated.
Thanks to skyrocketing real estate prices, Manhattan gas stations are worth much more than the money the owner can make selling gas. Last year, a Getty near the High Line sold for $23.5 million. A few months later, another station in the borough went for $25 million.
And IF this is true, this means the East Village will no longer have any gas stations in another year or so. In March, Hakimian Property
filed plans to erect
a 9-story mixed-use building on the site of the Mobil station on East Houston and Avenue C. (The station was expected to be open until next year.) Meanwhile, the BP station on East Houston and Lafayette will be home to
this one day.
Said Eastern Consolidated's Polsinelli to WNYC: "You see everything that was once industrial — auto body shops, garages, gas stations — and now they're all holes in the ground with cranes in them."
Previously on EV Grieve:
How much longer will the East Village have gas stations?
The East Village will soon be down to 1 gas station
The Mobil on Avenue C is still going strong — for now
You have a little longer to get gas on Avenue C
Plans filed for new 9-story building at site of Mobil station on East Houston and Avenue C