The city’s big developers are eager to get moving on projects in the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area, Crain’s reported.
Over 300 people—including representatives from top-tier developers such as Forest City Ratner, Related Companies and Douglaston Development– attended an information session last Monday hosted by the New York City Economic Development Corporation and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.
Edward J. Minskoff Equities, which is developing a new office tower on Astor Place and Avalon Bay Communities, which recently did two large complexes on the Bowery, also sent representatives, as did affordable housing builders such as Jonathan Rose Cos. and L+M Development.
Other notables who turned out for the information session were architects Robert A.M. Stern and Ishmael Levya; contractors Lend Lease and Cooper Robertson; and brokers Cassidy Turley and CBRE Group.
After 40 years of indecision, the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area was rezoned in 2012. In January of this year, the EDC released its wish list for the 1.65-million-square-feet area, which calls for a 60/40 mix of housing and commercial space, reserves land for a potential new school, and expands and relocates the Essex Street Market to the southeast corner of Delancey Street and Essex Street.
“We are pleased with the strong interest that NYCEDC and HPD have already received for this historic project,” EDC spokesman Nick Kelly told Crain’s. “This will transform six acres of underutilized land on the Lower East Side into a vibrant, mixed-use development.” [Crain’s] —Hiten Samtani