Affordable Housing, Church To Be Bulldozed: East Harlem Developments

EAST HARLEM, NY — It can be hard to keep up with all the new construction happening across East Harlem, and the past week has been an especially eventful one, with a flurry of new plans being filed for notable neighborhood projects.

Here's a roundup of the newly filed projects, including a block-sized affordable housing development, a 10-story building replacing a church, and apartments coming to a long-empty lot on Second Avenue.

1578 Lexington Ave.

A 10-story building is set to replace the century-old three-story building on this block between East 100th and 101st streets, formerly home to Life Changers Church & Ministries, according to plans filed Friday by developer Oren Evenhar.

Like many other Harlem houses of worship, Life Changers opted in 2018 to sell its property to Evenhar for $4.3 million, as part of a deal in which the church would be given a new 8,300-square-foot home in the future building that the developer planned to for the site.

The new 144-foot-tall building will be occupied by the Children's Aid Society, the nonprofit whose longtime home around the corner closed in recent years. According to the group's website, the rest of the building will contain a Mount Sinai Hospital medical facility and space for the church.

Demolition plans for the existing church building have been on file with the city since 2020.

105 East 118th St. (Timbale Terrace)

Meanwhile, the city appears to be moving forward with the big, block-sized affordable apartment housing known as Timbale Terrace, which will be built on the current NYPD 25th Precinct parking lot along Park Avenue.

The city's housing department filed construction plans on Tuesday, more than a year after first announcing it would build Timbale Terrace on the block that spans from East 118th to 119th streets.

It will contain 341 apartments, of which around 99 will be set aside for formerly homeless households, the city has said. It will also contain a performing arts center operated by the Harlem-based Afro Latin Jazz Alliance, along with practice rooms, art galleries, community performances spaces and street-level retail, the city has said.

Initial plans for Timbale Terrace were revealed last year alongside another development, The Beacon: a 250-unit affordable project to be built alongside the East Harlem Multi-Service Center on East 120th Street. No construction plans for that project have been filed in the ensuing year.

The new filing suggests the city was not swayed by opposition from two outgoing lawmakers, then-Assemblymember Robert Rodriguez and City Council Member Bill Perkins, who both came out against Timbale Terrace and The Beacon weeks before they both left office last year. Rodriguez and Perkins argued that the developers chosen for both buildings had inadequate neighborhood ties.

2324 Second Ave.

An 11-story apartment building is coming to this long-empty lot on Second Avenue just north of East 119th Street, according to plans filed Friday by developer Ananthan Thangavel.

The lot has sat empty since at least 2008, and Thangavel bought the site in 2020 for $1.9 million, records show.

The new building will have 22 apartments and be 100 feet tall, with some fraction of the units set to be affordable through the city's inclusionary housing program.