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. ‍