Gifford Miller, a partner at Signature Urban Properties, and a rendering of the Bronx development

Signature Urban Properties and Monadnock Construction are set to break ground on the first phase of a 10-building, 1,300-unit apartment complex in the Bronx, to date the borough’s largest private residential project, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Compass Residences complex, to be erected in the Crotona Park East and West Farms section of the South Bronx in an area bordered by the Sheridan Expressway, will be built in an area currently composed of defunct warehouses. The area was rezoned from fully industrial to mixed-use in 2011, to allow for the Signature development. The buildings will rise as high as 15 stories, towering over the low- and mid-rise structures on surrounding blocks…. [more]

From left: Gifford Miller and a rendering of West Farms

The massive West Farms development being led by former City Council Speaker Gifford Miller secured more funding this month, paving the way for construction to start on the first phase of the project by early next year. The New York Times reported that Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. allocated $1.2 million in funding, and City Council member Joel Rivera’s office contributed $1.3 million more on top of financing already secured from the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development. [more]

Gifford Miller, a partner at Signature Urban Properties, and a rendering of the Bronx development

A massive $350 million mixed-use development project in the Bronx — one of the largest private rezonings proposed for that borough in decades — received the final green light in the city’s Urban Land Use Review Process earlier this month.

The proposal calls for the creation of ten mixed-use buildings comprising 1325 housing units and 46,000 square feet of retail space that will be built in Crotona Park East and West Farms on a five-acre former industrial plot adjacent the Sheridan Expressway. The developer, Manhattan-based Signature Urban Properties, is projecting that 663 homes would be set aside as affordable housing.

Gifford Miller, former Speaker of the New York City Council who is now a partner at Signature Urban Properties, said the project is expected to take seven years to build so projections on where the market will be upon completion is difficult to determine.
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From left: Gifford Miller and Robert Frost, partner at Signature Urban
Properties

The Department of City Planning will be holding a public hearing on former City Council Speaker Gifford Miller’s Bronx real estate project later this month, the Wall Street Journal reported.

As previously reported, Miller and longtime friend Robert Frost, a partner at Signature Urban Properties, are planning to transform a derelict section of the Bronx near the Sheridan Expressway with 10 new “affordable” apartment buildings, they said.

The $400 million Bronx project is the pair’s first ground-up venture, the Journal said; the area is currently home to a strip of car repair shops and smaller residential buildings. Signature, founded in 2007, is currently working to have it rezoned to allow for the development. … [more]

A new development group has acquired a stretch of neglected blocks on West Farms Road in the Bronx, and wants the city to rezone the area so it can build 10 high-rise buildings with a total of 1,300 apartments and shops, the New York Daily News reported. According to the Department of City Planning, it would be one of the largest private rezoning projects in the borough since Co-op City. The land — 215,000 square feet overlooking the Sheridan Expressway and the Bronx River — was purchased by Signature Urban Properties, led by former City Council Speaker Gifford Miller. The project is expected to cost up to $400 million and could take up to seven years to complete…. [more]