A developer who filed plans to demolish three four-story buildings along Fourth Avenue wants to build condominiums in their place. The project will demolish 161, 165 and 167 Fourth Ave. and the three-story home at 643 Degraw St. to build a 12-story condo building in their place, said Gordon Gemma, owner of Gemma Realty Consultants, who represents the Argentinean owner Claudio Soifer.
The proposed building will have 59-units inside and about 7,000-square-feet of ground-floor retail space, Gemma said. Developers tapped ODA New York- who recently designed the condo at 251 First St. in the neighborhood – as the architecture for the project.
Soifer, under the name 167-174 Fourth Avenue LLC, filed plans earlier this month to demolish the three buildings on Fourth Avenue and the 643 Degraw St. spot, city records show. The Department of Buildings has not approved the take-downs yet and owners haven’t filed permits to build the new condos.
Gemma said workers are currently performing asbestos abatement on-site and they hope to finish demolition of the homes in the spring.
The development site from 167 to 171 Fourth Ave., near Degraw Street, was first put up for sale in 2014 and Soifer bought it for $6.3 million the next year in an all-cash transaction, according to broker Cushman & Wakefield.
The sale set a record for Fourth Avenue at the time with the highest price per-buildable-square-foot for a lot at about $328, Cushman & Wakefield said.
The land contains several vacant lots and under current zoning the developer could build about 19,200-square-feet without city approval, according to Cushman & Wakefield.
Soifer later bought the 161 Fourth Ave. property for $3.6 million under his LLC last year.
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