By Hadassa Kalatizadeh
On Thursday, Minrav Development filed plans with the city for a 10-story, 50-unit condominium building at 305 First Ave. As reported by Crain’s NY, the luxury project, planned for the border of Stuyvesant Town in Manhattan, will be 116 feet tall and comprise of roughly 70,000 square feet. In addition to the 50 condo apartments, the project is also slated to include commercial space at the base of the building. SLCE Architects was tapped as the building’s architect.
Minrav, the commercial and residential developer based in New York City’s Madison Avenue, purchased the vacant lots at 305-311 First Avenue in February of last year. As per city records, the four adjacent lots were purchased from CIM Group for the price of $28.5 million. Representatives for Minrav did not respond to Crain’s request for comment.
Minrav’s other New York City developments include: 244 E. 52nd St., which is a 15-unit luxury condo building; 427 E. 90th St., which is a 21-unit luxury condo building; 368 Third Avenue, in Kips Bay, which is a 35-floor mixed-use residential and retail condominium development under construction and slated for completion by the end of 2021; 21 Powers Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which offers 14 luxury residential condominiums. As per the company’s website, in early 2020, the firm also purchased the site at 343-345 EAST 17TH Street in Manhattan’s Gramercy Park, and has plans to develop about 30,000 square feet of residential condos.
The latest plans are another push for Manhattan’s condominium market, which seems to be off to a not-too shabby start for 2021, despite the pandemic which continues to linger and threaten throughout the city. In January, there were 360 new signed contracts for condos in Manhattan, which is about 50 percent more than the 239 contracts signed in January 2020, as per a report from Douglas Elliman. Another report from the Real Estate Board of New York, showed that overall, filings for new buildings spanned about 42.7 million square feet last year, down 28 percent compared to the previous year and the lowest total since 2012. In 2020, construction companies filed plans for only 1,760 new buildings, also the lowest number since 2012.
This year has so far showed signs of improvement, with several new super projects filed. The Gotham Organization has filed for plans to build a colossal 47-story mixed-use tower at 550 10th Ave. in Manhattan’s Far West side.
