When the Metropolis Council accepted the rezoning of 42 blocks in Midtown South, it excluded 37 properties within the Garment District from adjustments that will pave the way in which for extra housing.
Now the proprietor of a type of properties is contemplating zoning adjustments to permit residential area anyway.
Manocherian Brothers signaled in a quick abstract filed with the Division of Metropolis Planning that it desires to rezone 257 West thirty ninth Avenue, a 16-story industrial constructing that’s dwelling to varied cloth outlets.
The proprietor filed a preliminary description of the venture in December, calling for a partial conversion of the constructing to residential use. The positioning, together with the opposite 36 buildings carved out, is zoned for industrial, gentle manufacturing and group facility makes use of.
No utility supplies have but been filed, and a property supervisor on the agency declined to remark.
Below a earlier proposal, the northwest quadrant of the Midtown South plan would have been rezoned as M1-9A/R-12, a designation that enables each industrial and high-density residential use. However earlier than approving the rezoning, the Metropolis Council made a variety of adjustments. One was to drop the residential — R-12 — change from the Garment District, as a substitute switching the world’s zoning from M1-6 to M1-9A.
On the time, Council member Kevin Riley, then-chair of the subcommittee on zoning and franchises, stated the carveout was in service of preserving a “distinctive cluster of companies” within the Garment District. The New York Style Workforce Growth Coalition agreed, praising the adjustments as “important protections” for the district.
The constructing on thirty ninth Avenue has cloth outlets on the bottom ground, together with AK Materials, It’s a Materials World, Beckenstein Materials and Cloth Home. Extra outlets have taken residence on the higher flooring, although one tenant indicated that a lot of the constructing sits vacant.
The road is among the many endangered “clusters” referenced by Riley. The constructing subsequent door, at 251 West thirty ninth, can also be dwelling to a number of cloth and wholesale gildings and accent shops. Throughout the road is the Drama E book Store, a reminder of the world’s historical past of feeding the wardrobe wants of the close by Theater District.
However you don’t should enterprise far for traces of that historical past to dissipate: Chain and fast-casual eating places dominate fortieth Avenue and have taken over a lot of thirty eighth as effectively.
An evaluation by PropertyScout discovered that almost all (greater than 84 %) of the Midtown South rezoning district is devoted to industrial use, adopted by residential at about 13 % and manufacturing at 1.2 %. PropertyScout CEO Wilson Parry identified that the unique certificates of occupancy for the thirty ninth Avenue constructing reveals the property as soon as served as tenement housing, which probably makes the property candidate for conversion, a minimum of from an entry to gentle and air perspective.
It’s unclear if extra property house owners will search site-specific zoning adjustments inside the carveout space. Nonetheless, if others observe Manocherian Brothers, the proposals may name into query the logic of the Metropolis Council’s rezoning modifications, particularly because the administration tries to ramp up housing development. Town initiatives that the rezoning will enable the development of greater than 9,500 housing items, a lower of 200 units from the town’s estimate earlier than the Council’s adjustments (although some have estimated the loss to be a lot better).
Such particular person zoning adjustments can be reviewed by the one who replaces native Council member Erik Bottcher, who received a particular election this month to fill Brad Hoylman-Sigal’s seat within the state Senate. Whoever takes over for Bottcher might have much less final-say energy for such proposals because of ballot measures weakening the Council’s custom of member deference.
The northwest quadrant carveout drew the ire of some house owners hoping to transform their properties or promote at a better premium. No less than one property inside that space was being marketed as utterly vacant and prepared for residential conversion proper earlier than the Metropolis Council amended the rezoning proposal.
The Garment District Alliance, a enterprise enchancment district whose board members embody native property house owners, opposed the Council’s amendments, arguing that the town was needlessly leaving housing alternatives on the desk.
The group just lately carried out a survey of the 37 properties within the carveout and located an almost 30 % emptiness (although this doesn’t account for any pending leases).
Barbara Blair, president of the Garment District Alliance, stated the zoning carveout sidelines an space the place the town ought to be encouraging progress, given its proximity to the Port Authority Bus Terminal and Penn Station.
“It’s critically necessary that this can be a excessive functioning neighborhood as a result of it’s a port of entry,” she stated. “I believe that the town ought to revisit it.”
Learn extra
Did the city lose out on 1,000 housing units in Midtown South?
City Council tweaks Midtown South rezoning, reduces housing estimates
Cayre Equities cashes in on Midtown South rezoning with Garment District flip
