Douglaston Development Plans Project on Upper East Side

Jeffrey Levine’s Douglaston Development is putting together a residential project on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

The firm acquired a 90-unit rental property at 1450 Third Avenue, PincusCo reported. Property records do not show the transaction between Douglaston and long-time owner Marjorie Nesbitt. But Levine apparently obtained the right to build on the property, which is also known as 170 East 83rd Street and covers the full western blockfront between East 82nd and East 83rd streets.

Levine will knock down part of the existing rental building and put up a 39-story, 478-foot-tall building with 72 units at 175 East 82nd Street. Combined, the structures will have 172 units, according to PincusCo.

Cetra Ruddy Architecture is designing the project, which will have retail on the ground floor, parking on the second and one or two apartments on each residential floor. Amenities in the middle of the tower will include a swimming pool, media room, sauna, terrace, fitness room, kids room and yoga studio.

Douglaston did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Real Deal.

The firm filed plans in October to demolish the southern half of the six-story building at 1450 Third Avenue.

The 148,000-square-foot building has 110,000 square feet of additional air rights. The city’s market valuation of the property in 2022 was $29.1 million; BankUnited lent $19 million against the property in March 2020, the first month of pandemic shutdowns in the city.

A Gristedes grocery store at the base of the property closed last year.

Levine’s Douglaston is an active builder in New York City, having constructed thousands of units since it was founded in 1979. Last year, Douglaston filed plans to build 107 units in East Flatbush, the first of nearly 900 units proposed for the reimagined Kingsboro Psychiatric Center campus.

— Holden Walter-Warner