Kahen Properties, a Queens-based real estate company, has announced plans to develop a 12-story, 135-unit luxury rental building at the corner of Avenue D and 2nd Street. The new project, first reported last week by The Real Deal, is the latest in a string of large development projects to emerge across the Lower East Side and the East Village.
The new plan apparently replaces a plan by a previous owner/developer we reported on back in 2010, called Houston Dee, which plowed through several rounds of vetting and a lengthy debate about affordable housing back in early 2010 but was never built. The Kahen application filed Jan. 11 with the Department of Buildings lists Avinash Malhotra Architects as the designer and calls for a 120-foot-tall exterior with 99,000 square feet of residential space and about 10,000 square feet of commercial space on the ground floor.
The developer paid $21 million for the corner property on Jan. 20, according to city land records. The project site encompasses six lots in total, all of which had been acquired under the name Houston Dee LLC, a company headed by Simon Bergson, the president and CEO of Manhattan Beer Distributors, who had planned to develop them two years ago.
The building will be called “Alphabet Plaza” and will occupy 5-9 Avenue D and 306-310 E. Second St. It is expected to be completed in 2014. It will cost about $30 million to develop, The Real Deal reported. Apartments will range from 500 to 1,000 square feet, priced between $2,500 and $3,600, Majid Kahen told The Real Deal, adding that some of the units will be priced according to affordable housing guidelines as part of an “80/20 plan.”
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