City Unveils $1B Seward Park Redevelopment Plan

Forty-six years after the bulldozers came through, the Seward Park area of the Lower East side is being redeveloped at a price tag of more than $1 billion. The 1.65 million square-foot Essex Crossing development will include more than 1,000 units of housing at nine sites near the intersections of Essex and Delancey Streets. The build out will create 250,000 square feet of office and retail space, a rooftop farm, and an Andy Warhol museum. Mayor Bloomberg says the project will create 4,400 construction jobs, most of which will be union. Groundbreaking is set for the spring of 2015. The whole project should be complete by the end of 2024.

The project’s amenities include a bowling alley and movie theater. A site has also been reserved for a public school, which will be developed by the School Construction Authority. The developers will also upgrade the existing DOT plazas on Delancey Street.

The Essex Street Market will relocate across Delancey Street, doubling in size to approximately 30,000 square-feet on the ground floor, plus a mezzanine of roughly 7,000 SF. The new market, anticipated to open in 2018, will accommodate all the existing market vendors at the time of the move and provide room for new vendors in a range of sizes.

The project will include an extensive assortment of retail and commercial uses, including the unique space to be known as the Market Line, on a concourse created through vaulted archways from the second floor through the cellar of the three sites south of Delancey between Essex and Clinton Streets. [ElectricWeb | Blogger, June 6, 2012]

The natural light-filled, continuous Market Line will include a variety of spaces, consisting of small- to medium-sized vendor stalls with tenants that include retail and food-oriented uses, a culinary incubator and a center dedicated to encouraging entrepreneurs to learn craft skills and produce and sell hand-made merchandise.

In addition, approximately 40 retail spaces will be developed in the Market Line. The project also includes a large grocery store.

Long known as the Seward Park Renewal Area project, the city has wanted to redevelop the sites since 1967, when it began tearing down old tenement buildings that were occupied by working-class immigrants.

The Seward Park Mixed-Use Development Project grew out of collaboration between community leaders and elected officials, who have worked on the Essex Crossing plan for the past five years. The Essex Crossing site the largest city-owned plot of land below 96th Street.

[ElectricWeb | Blogger, Nov 13, 2012]

Taconic Investment Partners, L+M Development Partners, and BFC Partners were selected through a competition to develop the project, he said. The development team will invest a total of $1.1 billion in the project.

The city expects to break ground on the project in spring 2015. The first five buildings are expected to be finished by summer 2018. The city anticipates the entire complex will be finished by 2024.

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