Plan envisions public walkway along Harlem River waterfront. The Department of City Planning’s sweeping rezoning proposal for a 30-block area of the South Bronx, bordering the Harlem River, obtained City Council approval on June 30, 2009. The plan impacts the underused and primarily industrial-zoned area along the Harlem River, bounded by East 149th Street on the north, Morris and Lincoln Avenues to the east, and the Major Deegan Expressway and Park Avenue to the south. Abandoned or converted to other land uses, City Planning found that the area suffered from a 22 percent vacancy rate with over 40 percent of the area occupied by storage, warehousing, and other light industrial uses.

The approved plan rezones the area’s inland blocks to mixed-use districts, permitting residential and commercial development as-of-right, as well as allowing the continuation of light industrial uses. The proposal allows grocery stores of any size as-of-right whereas food stores over 10,000 sq.ft. previously required a special permit. The Inclusionary Housing Program also became applicable to the area. (more…)

Thirty-block rezoning in South Bronx would encourage redevelopment of blighted waterfront. On June 19, 2008, the Department of City Planning held a public hearing on the draft scope of an environmental impact statement for the proposed Lower Concourse Rezoning. The proposal covers a 30-block area, generally bounded by the Harlem River on the west, East 149th to the north, Morris and Lincoln Avenues on the east, and the Major Deegan Expressway and Park Avenue to the south.

City Planning’s plan seeks to encourage new residential and commercial development and enhance the waterfront areas in the traditionally industrial section of the South Bronx. During the past two decades the area, which is readily accessible by public transit, has seen significant residential construction after an earlier period of disinvestment and population decline during the 1970s and 1980s. At the same time, industrial uses in the area have decreased, creating underutilized, industrial-zoned land that, according to City Planning, blights the neighborhood. (more…)

New York’s oldest known piano factory begins landmarking process. On April 11, 2006, Landmarks held a public hearing on the Estey Piano Factory, located at 112 Lincoln Avenue in the Mott Haven area of the Bronx. The factory was built between 1885 and 1886 by the firm of A. D. Ogden and Sons. An addition was added in 1890, and further additions were built between 1895 and 1919. Though not as renowned as Astoria for Steinway Pianos’ factory, Mott Haven was once a center of piano manufacturing in the United States with more than 50 firms with factories in the area.

Currently housing artists’ studios, the Estey Piano factory is the oldest such factory in New York, and a focal point of the Mott Haven neighborhood. Its signature seven and one-half-story clock tower is visible from the waterfront and the Harlem River, and the brick facade building is a well-preserved example of late 19th-century industrial architecture in the American round arch tradition. (more…)

82-year-old Yankee Stadium and nearby public parks to be replaced by new stadium, park space and public parking. On April 5, 2006, City Council approved 11 Parks applications related to development of a new Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, including disposition of three parcels of land to the Economic Development Corporation.

The new stadium site on East 161st Street is immediately north of Yankee Stadium’s current site. The proposal included 15.82 acres of new public park space and four new parking garages. The plan required map amendments to designate new parkland and eliminate portions of surrounding streets, as well as an action by the State legislature to eliminate 162nd Street. The plan also required two special permits for parking garages, a concession for new tennis facilities, and City acquisition of a leasehold interest in the new stadium to facilitate the financing of the project. The Yankees will fund the entire cost of the new stadium, spending over $800 million, while the City and State will provide $160 million and $70 million respectively on nearby infrastructure and additional improvements. (more…)