Big changes are ahead for 263 Broome Street, a five-story tenement and adjoining low-rise commercial building on Allen Street. According to Department of Buildings records, the owner will soon begin a full demolition of the property, and it appears a hotel project is planned for the parcel.
On September 19, the city gave the go-ahead for the demo, “using hand devices only.” An observant tipster led us from the application to the web site for Sun Sun Investment, located at 207 Bowery.
Here’s the drawing posted to the site, depicting a structure at least 10 floors high. There are no details about the plan, but the home page does make reference to a “hotel project on the Lower East Side.” S M Architects in Brooklyn is designing the new building. 263 Broome Street is currently listed on Halstead’s web site for $7.5 million (presumably that listing will disappear sometime soon).
There are, of course, a large number of planned and/or stalled hotel projects across the neighborhood. Developers have insisted there continues to be a market for additional hotel rooms on the Lower East Side. Stay tuned. We’ll see what additional information can be turned up.
That would totally ruing the character of the area. What?
So ugly! The other buildings on Sun Sun website are also horrific!
Also, if anyone thinks this building will be demolished by hand tools only, come on! They will likely sneak this at night using heavy equipment. Please neighbors report them if you see/hear this happening
Too bad the Tenement Museum’s effort to get this area Landmarked went nowhere. Developers have there eye on every parcel that has unused development rights. Because of current commercial zoning, if a developer builds a hotel instead of apartments he gets almost double the FAR (i.e. density). I bet these “hotel rooms” will have kitchenettes that will allow them to be quickly rented out long term if the hotel market does pan out.
It’s a shame that the character of the Lower East Side is about to be utterly destroyed because of development. If it’s possible to conceive of an East Village historic district, why not a Lower East Side historic district? By the time anyone cares about preserving this neighbourhood, it’s going to be far too late…or, I suppose, everyone is far too busy profiting…