Developers pump gas stations with new life

Developers are looking at New York City gas stations as less a 10-minute pit stop than a two-year project.

Gasoline stations on corner lots and near major intersections are increasingly being converted into residential properties, particularly as land is scarce. Also, they are ideal for ground-up construction, Zach Vella, a principal at developer VE Equities, told the New York Times.

VE Equities is building a 16-unit condominium on a former gas station site at 11 North Moore Street in Tribeca, as well as a 12-unit condo at 290 West Street on a former Mobil site. Developer Michael Shvo is turning a former Getty station at 239 10th Avenue in Chelsea into a luxury condo site that in the interim is serving as an art exhibit with sheep statues, as previously reported.

“Developers like these sites for the same reason gas stations wanted to be there originally,” Shvo told the Times. “Lots of people and lots of traffic.”

Brokers, however, have said gas stations can be a hard sell because the soil underneath the site could be polluted, the newspaper said. [NYT] — Mark Maurer