Construction is ascending on 642 E. 14th St., the new 24-story building along the eastern border of the East Village at Avenue C.
The structure now stands several floors above the corner plywood...
The 234-foot-tall building, going as
14+C, will include 197 residential units, "a state-of-the-art fitness room," a yoga studio, and a rooftop deck. Information about the number of "affordable" units included in 14+C, one of the stipulations for being allowed to build a larger (by nine floors) building, has not been made public.
Madison Square Realty is the third owner of the long-empty lot (
since 2009) in the past eight years. Madison Realty Capital paid Opal Holdings $31.3 million for the property in May 2020. Opal Holdings bought the parcel
in June 2016 from Brooklyn's Rabsky Group for $23 million.
Plans for a 15-floor mixed-use building had already been approved, though no affordable units were attached to that version.
As revealed in the spring of 2021, several developers spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying the city for NYCHA air rights to make this a larger structure with more housing. Plans for the larger development were first unveiled
in June 2022.
The plywood rendering lists a February 2026 completion date.
Meanwhile, there is no word on the status of 642 E. 14th St. next door. The new development extends to the third floor of the five-story tenement.
Last month, the owner of 642 E. 14th St. filed plans to demolish the currently vacant pre-war building.
Per
Crain's New York, Jeremy Lebewohl, owner of the Second Avenue Deli, filed the paperwork with the Department of Buildings (DOB) on July 10.
Last November,
as we first reported, 642's residents — many of them in rent-stabilized units — were abruptly vacated after ongoing excavation next door destabilized the building.
According to the Department of Buildings at the time, "Structural stability of building compromised due to construction operations taking place at 644 E. 14th Street. Heavy cracks in the exterior and interior in addition to separation noted at door frames and floor from wall..."
Lebewohl's attorney, Adam Leitman Bailey, told Crain's that "multiple engineers have now said the building is dangerous and needs to be torn down entirely."
According to a spokesperson last month, the DOB was reviewing the application but had not issued an emergency demolition order for the property, per Crain's.
As of yesterday, the request for a demolition permit was "on hold," per DOB records.
The rendering, which does not
seem to scale with the surrounding structures, shows No. 642 still in place...