Owners of vacant lot on 29th & 10th looking to sell

Neighbor Conor, owner of the much anticipated Zebra Building opening this fall, writes in with a comment on our post last week regarding the vacant lot on 29th Street & 10th Avenue. The owners of the lot (who have owned it since at least the 1980s) have retained a broker called BK Real Estate Advisors to sell the lot; here’s an article on the lot, and shown here is a rendering of what may be possible for the space.

The lot is zoned “COMMERCIAL OR MANHATTAN RESIDENTIAL,” though from the rendering and article, it looks like the broker is pitching it as a residential opportunity:

Development sites that combine a prime Manhattan location, favorable zoning, construction readiness, and multiple pathways to increased density are increasingly difficult to find.

As residential demand continues to grow in West Chelsea and Hudson Yards, 327 Tenth Avenue offers developers a unique opportunity to deliver a boutique project in one of New York City's most dynamic neighborhoods. The combination of zoning flexibility, location quality, and immediate buildability positions the site as a compelling investment opportunity.

We’ll reach out to the brokers for any more information. Would be great to get a new building in this space along with the other buildings that are supposed to be sprouting up in the neighborhood (note: our latest information is that the Scores development has stalled).

About that vacant, sometimes lush lot on 29th Street & 10th Avenue

It is not too far from the truth to say that this block association was formed around the wild little empty jungle we have on 29th Street & 10th Avenue. I won’t scroll all the way back to our 5-year old posts, but suffice to say that we made a rendering of a what a community garden in the lot—designated by the city as Block 700, Lot 36—would look like and even drew up a proposal for changing its tax classification. The dream never actualized unfortunately and so the lot remains what you see here today.

We wrote last week about the vacant storefront on 29th & 10th, right next to this empty lot, and observed that the vacant-next-to-vacant situation is causing a situation‍ that we don’t need to put into a thousand words. This empty lot remains owned by the same owner we spoke to 5 years ago, and the total value of the land has stayed virtually the same over that period (around $3.8m). “Improvement value,” which is the city’s way of valuing what you’ve actually put on the land (like a house or apartment building), sits at a clean $0. This is our neighborhood dinosaur; a glimpse of the prehistoric era of West Chelsea that existed before the glassy building you’re probably reading this from sprung up.

We’re going to reach out to the owner again to see if there are any plans for the space, which is currently burning through about $190k/year in taxes ‍and not generating any income (unless there are crops in there or something). Will let you know what we hear back. ‍

Let’s talk about the vacancies, starting with the storefront on 10th Ave & 29th Street

This is the first in a series of posts that are coming about the vacant lots and storefronts around our block. On the latter, our Chelsea neighborhood is (along with Hell’s Kitchen) sitting right around the city’s overall vacant storefront rate of about 11% (we’re at about 12%). So the good news is we’re average. The bad news is we’re average.

The vacant space on 29th Street near 10th Avenue that you see here is right next to an empty mini-jungle that OGs of this block association will recall we mused about turning into a community garden about 5 years ago now—and yes, another post is coming about that green vacant lot. This particular vacant storefront is owned by Maestro West Chelsea Spe LLC, which is the owner of the entire glassy residential building that 28th Streeters will know as 507 West Chelsea. In city parlance, the building is on Block 700, Lot 27 and valued for tax purposes at $107 million (which frankly is way too low, but we’ve already established that the city’s property appraisal system makes no sense). There are 372 residential units and exactly 1 commercial unit in the building, and the commercial storefront space you see here has a technical address of 506 West 29th Street.

By all accounts of the many members of this organization who live in 507 West Chelsea, Maestro is doing an incredible job on 28th Street; if you walk into the 507 West Chelsea lobby on 28th, you kind of feel like you’re walking into a wellness spa replete with a full green wall right behind the lobby. But as much as we love a little grit around here, the equivalent space on 29th Street has a bit of a Fight Club feel, by which I mean kind of just like a dingy basement and without any Brad Pitt or even any Edward Norton. And where we really draw the line is no Edward Norton. I’ve been on the block for quite some time, and as far as I know, no tenant has ever been in this space. The double-vacancy situation pictured here is causing a problem that I don’t need to put into a thousand words.

So what can we do about this? We’ll reach out to Maestro and Newmark, the commercial broker for the space, to see what’s going on here, but the fact is they probably want a tenant even more than you or I want a tenant. If you’ve got any ideas (and we have at least one), please let us know.

In the meantime, please remember to get gelato at our new gelato place; get zebras at our new zebra place; and otherwise get what you need as close to you as possible.‍ Sometimes you launch a prayer into the universe and it is kind of answered; most times it is on us though to make the house a home and make a block a neighborhood. We’ll let you know if there are any updates.