Lower East Side’s former Essex Street Market to become 99-unit rental
Renderings courtesy of BFC Partners and S9 Architecture.
The site of the historic Essex Street Market on the Lower East Side is slated to become a mixed-use development with 99 apartments. As one of the last remaining undeveloped parcels in the city’s decade-long Essex Crossing redevelopment, 100 Essex Street will rise 10 stories and include 26 affordable apartments, ground-floor retail, and a new elevator and escalator for the Delancey Street subway station. Developed by Delancey Street Associates and designed by S9 Architecture, the new building will rise on the site of the historic market, which opened in 1940 and closed its doors in 2019. Many vendors moved to a new and larger Essex Street Market across the street as part of the redevelopment.
As part of a push to clean up the streets and end unregulated pushcarts that became popular at the turn of the century, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia opened Essex Street Market in 1940. The original version had 475 stalls across four buildings, with many shops run by Jewish, Italian, and Puerto Rican immigrants of the Lower East Side. As shopping habits and the economy shifted in the 1970s, and New Yorkers started shopping elsewhere, the market struggled to stay open, and by the middle of the 1980s, less than 60 vendors remained.
To save the market, the city’s Economic Development Corporation took over, consolidated the remaining tenants in one building, and completed a renovation in 1995. The Essex Street Market opened at its new home at 88 Essex Street in 2019, including a mix of original vendors and new vendors, as part of the Essex Crossing development, which includes nine sites across six acres of city-owned land.
The project planned for 100 Essex Street, known as Site 9, brings the total housing under the redevelopment to 1,100 apartments, including 550 affordable units.
As first reported by The Lo-Down, the design for 100 Essex Street was revealed during a presentation to Manhattan Community Board 3 from BFC Partners, one of several firms that make up Delancey Street Associates, and S9 Architecture last month. The development, originally scheduled for completion in 2018, will rise 10 stories and span approximately 114,000 square feet.
The architects designed 100 Essex Street to reflect the neighborhood’s historic tenement buildings while also incorporating the vibrancy of the Lower East Side. Because the site is thin and long, the building will have a break in the facade to make it appear like two separate buildings. There will be three types of brick, including a green glazed brick and a dark gray brick.
Like many new residential buildings in the works, the project includes 99 apartments. Developers constructing new residential developments can apply to receive a tax break under the new 485-x program, while avoiding paying a higher minimum wage to workers that is required for buildings with 100 units and above.
According to the developers, there will be 15 studios, 35 one-bedrooms, 35 two-bedrooms, and 14 three-bedrooms. Amenities include in-unit laundry, a fitness room, a children’s playroom, a bike room, a pet spa, a co-working area, outdoor space, and a golf simulator.
The plan calls for four commercial spaces along Delancey and Essex Streets, which will most likely be retail and food and beverage tenants.
The project also includes enlarging the Delancey Street subway station easement to allow the MTA to build an elevator connecting the corner of Delancey and Essex Streets to the Delancey–Essex complex, home to the F, M, J, and Z trains. The MTA project includes other upgrades to make the station fully ADA-accessible, as the agency announced last April.
Construction could start this fall, starting with the demolition of the existing building, with the MTA work beginning next year. Work could wrap up in 2029, according to the developer.
RELATED:
