15-Story Affordable Housing Coming To East Harlem Block

EAST HARLEM, NY — A 15-story affordable apartment tower will soon replace a row of buildings on an East Harlem block, according to new plans.

Developer Elie Fouerti filed plans Wednesday for the 91-unit building at 2005 Third Ave., between East 110th and 111th streets. Last month, Patch reported that Fouerti had filed plans to demolish four buildings on the block, including a grocery store, an industrial building and a pair of three-story residential buildings.

The building replacing them will include low-income housing, according to the filing, although details about the affordability levels have not been finalized. Fouerti said Friday that he did not know when construction would begin.

In addition to the 100,000 square feet of residential space, the building will include a 5,500-square-foot commercial space and a "community facility," the plans show. It will be designed by Studio V Architecture.

Fouerti paid upwards of $10 million to acquire much of the block last fall, city records show.

As The Real Deal reported, the affordable housing component was made possible by the 2017 East Harlem rezoning, which created tax breaks for developers who include below-market homes in their neighborhood projects.

Notably, the block also sits within a Qualified Opportunity Zone: the sites created by the Trump administration in its 2017 tax bill in which developers receive tax breaks for building in low-income areas. Fouerti confirmed last month that the development will take advantage of the tax breaks — which some have criticized as a giveaway to wealthy investors rather than a tool of uplift.

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