On the Lower East Side, rich is the new hip. A trio of new developments may bring critical mass to one Norfolk Street block, turning it into a main drag for the gentrifying neighborhood.
The block between trendy Rivington Street and mixed-income Delancey Street will soon be home to three high-tech, high-end projects that will draw dozens of affluent new residents into one of New York’s oldest neighborhoods. Barring a more significant downturn in the condo market, sales prices on all three should tickle $1,100 a square foot – high numbers for the Lower East Side, an enclave where gentrification has lagged neighbors like the East Village and Nolita.
One of the new projects, the six-story, five-condo Switch at 109 Norfolk Street, was designed by nArchitects and should be done by this summer. The concept of “switch” applies to the design of the front and rear facades, said Mimi Hoang, one of the partners at nArchitects. “The front has a series of bay windows, which angle back and forth to create different views up and down the street,” she said. The rear balconies also switch from side to side, depending on the floor.
The non-doorman Switch building will have a ground-floor art gallery with double-height sky-lit space in the rear. The second to fifth floors each contain a two-bedroom, two-bath, 1,450-square-foot apartment, with modern appliances, terraces or balconies. They start at $1.3 million. A 1,900-square-foot duplex penthouse with terrace will cost $2.2 million, said Avi Voda, executive vice president at Prudential Douglas Elliman. The boutique building will have elevators that open into each apartment.
North of the Switch building, a seven-story unnamed residential building is being built on the site of three lots, at 115-119 Norfolk Street. The doorman building will have 24 apartments, ranging from 720-square-foot one-bedrooms to 1,400-square-foot two-bedrooms to 1,700-square-foot duplexes with balconies and terraces. All apartments will have large expanses of floor-to-ceiling glass. Some face Norfolk Street and some face west.
Most apartments will have outdoor space, and the property will have a landscaped roof with a pool and outdoor cooking area for tenants. The project will probably be completed in winter 2006, said Matthew Grzywinski, co-principal of Grzywinski Pons Architects. The developer is Zeyad Aly, a private owner.
“The developer is going to watch the market during the construction phase and may decide on condominiums or high-end rental,” Grzywinski said.
The ground-floor units will be rear yards, and “very likely there will be parking for the building underground,” Grzywinski said.
Grzywinski Pons Architects also designed the nearby Hotel at Rivington. “We have a good deal of experience in the neighborhood,” Grzywinski said. “We like the juxtaposition of the new developments and former tenement buildings.”
Finally, there’s Blue – the largest of the three new Norfolk Street projects. It’s under construction on the former parking lot of kosher restaurant Ratner’s, at 105 Norfolk Street. This 32-unit luxury condo building, designed by Bernard Tschumi, will have an angled facade of different shades of blue glass in multiple directions. It cantilevers to the south, said Angelo Cosentini, one of the developers of Blue. The building will be finished this fall.
A newly opened sales office is already busy, Cosentini said, and many prospective buyers are from the neighborhood. One-bedroom, 800-square-foot condos and two-bedroom, 1,400-square-foot apartments will have bamboo floors, stone-floor baths and glass tiles, with prices from $750,000 to $3 million. Blue will have a walk-in cooler for private deliveries from Fresh Direct.
At 16 stories, Blue will certainly stand out in the low-rise Lower East Side. “If you’ve got good design,” Cosentini said, “that becomes less of an issue.”
What’s still an issue may be the appeal of the Lower East Side to would-be buyers plunking down hundreds of thousands of dollars. Simply put, the neighborhood is still walking an uneven path to full gentrification.
Norfolk Street has two new restaurants across the street from the fresh construction, and art galleries are increasing in the area. At night, the Lower East Side attracts a young, hip crowd, while during the day it is more ethnic and diverse. But, when you cross Delancey, the neighborhood is economically mixed, with housing projects, fast-food joints, low-end stores, and the clutter at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge.
Grzywinski says well-to-do, young, creative professionals, aged late 20s to early 40s, will be the target demographic for his project. “It’s pretty safe down there, there are tons of restaurants and eclectic shopping, and it is relatively close to the new Whole Foods on Bowery and Houston,” he said.
And Hoang adds, “It’s just a matter of time until Norfolk Street picks up the way Rivington and Clinton have.”