Mamdani Admin To Seek Developers For 140 Units On East Harlem Land
The New York City Economic Development Corp. is unveiling a plan Wednesday evening to transform an East Harlem parking lot into a 140-unit mixed-use development at 2453 Second Ave., Bisnow can first report.
The EDC plans to release a request for proposals as soon as next month for developers interested in the project, which would at least include 35 affordable homes, according to a presentation the city gave to Manhattan Community Board 11. The city agency plans to incorporate feedback from the evening meeting into the eventual RFP.
The Second Avenue project is the first of three city-owned sites between East 125th and 127th streets where the EDC plans to unveil proposals for private development, according to an EDC slide deck obtained by Bisnow.
“NYCEDC is committed to addressing the affordable housing crisis and is working closely with the Mamdani administration,” Nico Aguilar, a spokesperson for the quasi-public NYCEDC, said in a statement.
The site would be offered without a direct city subsidy. Instead, the EDC would provide the land to private developers and require them to use the state’s 485-x tax abatement. The NYCEDC's presentation says the developers would use the cash they would have spent to acquire the land to subsidize the cost of the project’s affordable units.
The cross-subsidy allows developers to use traditional financing to break ground sooner than they could if they relied on financing from the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which has an approval waitlist of up to 10 years, according to the EDC.
The cross-subsidy model was most recently used as part of the city's Gansevoort Square redevelopment in the Meatpacking District, where it awarded a joint venture of Douglaston Development and Kinwood Partners the right to build a 590-unit mixed-income housing project.
The EDC has yet to unveil plans for two other city-owned sites near the East Harlem offering, which consist of an empty, fenced-off space at 2321 Third Ave. and a parking lot spanning half a block at 2461 Second Ave.
The city-owned sites have long been targeted for development. Then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced plans to build a $700M complex called the East Harlem Media, Entertainment and Cultural Center in 2008.
That project broke ground in 2010 and was supposed to deliver 1.7M SF of retail, office and commercial units, a 30K SF media center and housing. But progress has been slow.
The first phase, a 100% affordable housing development known as Metro125, delivered in 2012. The Proton Center, a cancer treatment facility, came online in 2019, and a partnership between Monadnock Development, Richman Group and Bridges Development delivered One East Harlem, a 19-story, 404-unit luxury apartment building with 271 affordable units.
There is no word on the planned hotel, cultural center or office space originally envisioned for the site.
The latest step in East Harlem's redevelopment is kicking off even as the EDC remains without a permanent CEO. Its leader is Jeanny Pack, who has been the organization’s chief financial officer since 2023 but is serving as the interim president and CEO following the resignation of former head Andrew Kimball, an Eric Adams appointee.
