Benenson Capital Partners (Benenson) and Mack Real Estate Group (MREG) have entered into a joint venture for the development of a mixed-use property on the site of the former Peter Stuyvesant Post Office in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, the companies announced.
Benenson has owned the property at 432 East 14th Street, between First Avenue and Avenue A, since the 1940s, and recently filed demolition plans for the Post Office building and another small retail building on the site. MREG and Benenson are now partners in the development of a new 8-story, 134,000 gross square foot, mixed use building housing 114 apartments and 15,400 square feet of ground floor retail space. Robert Laudenschlager of SLCE Architects has been engaged to design the building.
“We are delighted to work with Mack Real Estate Group on this exciting new project, which we believe will maximize the long-term value of a property that has been part of our portfolio for many years,” said Richard A. Kessler, Chief Operating Officer of Benenson Capital Partners. “The Macks share our multi-generational investment philosophy, and we look forward to creating an outstanding building by combining our expertise.”
The property is in a prime location near the First Avenue stop on the L train line of the NYC Subway. The L train corridor connects the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Bushwick and Williamsburg to the East Village, Union Square, and Chelsea in Manhattan, all of which have become prime, top-choice areas for sophisticated young people living and working in New York.
“In all of our multifamily development projects nationwide, we seek to build Class A assets in improving neighborhoods that show sustained positive demographic trends supporting long-term rental growth in excess of inflation. In New York, the L train corridor has many of the attributes we’re looking for. We believe that this corridor will be attractive to Millenials – currently the most significant demographic force in American real estate,” said Richard J. Mack, CEO of Mack Real Estate Group. “More importantly, as both families are long term investors, we are dedicated to developing an asset that is stylistically contextual to the neighborhood as it is today and yet timeless enough to appeal to future generations of urban dwellers.”
The amenity package for the residential portion is to include an exercise room, recreation room, outdoor recreation spaces, private dining room, a quiet lounge and a bicycle storage room. Pre-development work for the project is currently underway. The partners are targeting commencement of construction in the spring.
