Excel Files Demolition Permits on Dormant Kips Bay Project

Five years have passed without a peep at a multifamily project site in Kips Bay, but the developer finally appears ready to accelerate work with a major deadline looming.

Excel Development filed plans to demolish the four buildings at 339-345 East 33rd Street, between 2nd and 1st Avenue, Crain’s reported. The four buildings are between 40 and 50 feet tall, combining to span 16,000 square feet with 41 residential units, nearly a quarter of which remain occupied.

Michael Heletz’s Excel previously filed to demolish either individual or groups of buildings on the site in both 2016 and 2019. For the former, the Forest Hills-based developer withdrew the application. It evidently never moved forward with the latter. A rezoning was also approved in 2018.

The firm’s plans for the site date back to 2019, when it proposed a 133,000-square-foot multifamily project. The 23-story, 235-foot-tall property was slated to include ground-floor retail and 155 residential units, including 40 affordable units.

Excel planned to develop the property with the use of the 421a affordable housing tax break, which has long since lapsed. To qualify, the developer would have needed its foundation elements to be in place by June 15, 2022 and construction to be completed by June 2026.

Since it doesn’t appear that Excel will qualify for the now-expired tax break, it’s unclear if Excel’s original plans are still in place. Excel didn’t respond to a request for comment from Crain’s.

Excel pieced together the Kips Bay assemblage between 2015 and 2018 for a combined $26.3 million, though the deed transfers don’t appear in property records.

Last year, the Queens-based developer filed plans for a 21-story apartment project in Hell’s Kitchen to replace a century-old church building. The development would include 71 units across 104,000 square feet at 539 West 54th Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues.

— Holden Walter-Warner