Nelson Management paid $51.5 million for the four-building, rent-stabilized complex known as Lafayette Boynton in the Soundview section of the South Bronx in 2011, and they just spent another $17 million renovating its 972 apartments. Now the Forest Hills-based firm plans to build two more 13-story towers in the sprawling development next to Soundview Park.
Brooklyn developer Henry Weinstein is planning to renovate and refurbish the landmarked, century-old former Bronx Borough Courthouse building at 513 East 161st Street, in Morrisania. The building is expected to reopen in 2017 with 115,000 square feet of leasable space over nine floors, according to The New York Times. No Longer Empty, an art group, is currently utilizing the building and plans to take space after the renovations.
Amara Kenneh, imam of Masjid Nur Al-Islam, has filed applications to build a seven-story, seven-dwelling-unit mosque at the vacant lot of 1051 Sherman Avenue, in the Concourse, three blocks in from the Grand Concourse and six blocks from the 167th Street stop on the B/D trains. The structure will measure 24,506 square feet in total, and Nazhat Aboobaker’s Invision Engineers is the applicant of record.
Since a vast industrial swath of Mott Haven was rezoned in the South Bronx several years ago, affordable housing developers have slowly begun to build in the area, taking advantage of large vacant lots and cheap, derelict factories. One such developer has filed plans for a 12-story affordable building at 491 Gerard Avenue, a block over from the Major Deegan Expressway and a short walk from the 2, 4 and 5 trains at 149th Street-Grand Concourse.
Rezonings in the South Bronx have spurred development in Morrisania, Melrose and Mott Haven, but new construction has been slow to arrive in the neighborhoods nearby, like Crotona Park East and Longwood. However, new building applications were filed over the weekend for a seven-story apartment building at 1417 Longfellow Avenue, between Jennings and Freeman Streets in Crotona Park East.
