'You Don't Need More': East Village Residents Fight Expansion Of St. Marks Place Office Development

Rendering of proposed office building at 3 St. Marks Place

East Village residents and preservation groups are rallying against a developer's plan to enlarge an office building planned for Third Avenue and St. Marks Place, saying the project represents an increasing commercial assault on a strip that was once the epicenter of New York City counterculture.

“You don’t need more. This neighborhood doesn’t need to give you more,” said Ann Eriksson, one of several visibly angry and emotional East Village residents who spoke out against the plan during a public meeting on Wednesday.

In a bid to make the office building 20 percent bigger, Real Estate Equities, a family-owned development firm, is seeking permission from the city to transfer air rights from 4 St. Marks Place, a landmarked early 19th century house whose ground floor had been occupied by Trash and Vaudeville for 40 years until it moved out in 2016. The developer’s site at 3 St. Marks Place sits across the street, and the company has already filed building permits for an as-of-right plan to build a five-story, 29,030-square-foot building.

Should the city grant the transfer, the building would increase by 8,386 square feet and rise to 10 stories.

On Wednesday, Community Board 3’s landmarks committee voted 2-1 against the application, saying it did not believe an air rights deal, which is intended to preserve a landmarked building, was a “fair trade-off” for the additional office density. The decision was only a preliminary step to a longer and more complex public review process. Under city zoning rules, landmark air rights transfers are subject to the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, also known as ULURP.

Requests for landmark air rights in New York City are not often made by developers, given the lengthy approval process.

Real Estate Equities is prepared to pay $4 million for the air rights to Castellan Real Estate Partners, the owner of the landmarked building, if the deal is approved. Brandon Miller, a managing partner at Real Estate Equities, said the company also contributed $500,000 toward the restoration, which is still ongoing. Five percent of the air rights sale proceeds, or $200,000, is to be put into a dedicated account for future maintenance.

Known as the Hamilton-Holly House, 4 St. Marks Place was formerly home to Alexander Hamilton’s son.

Hamilton-Holly House in 2010 (Wikipedia Commons)

Following the Community Board’s full vote on February 26th at 166 Essex Street, the plan will go to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which must decide whether to issue a report in support of the application. If it does, the application will then return back to CB3 for ULURP.

“We’re gratified that at the first step our concerns were heard,” said Andrew Berman, the executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Preservation, who also spoke out against the plan. He added: “We’re going to keep at this process until its end point.”

Berman has called on the city to rezone the area south of Union Square to protect an area replete with historic buildings from oversized commercial development. In August, the City Council unanimously voted to approve a rezoning to pave the way for a 21-story, 240,000-square-foot “tech hub” on East 14th Street.

Critics of the plan, including Berman, warned that rezoning would increase development pressure on areas south of Union Square.

Staff members from Council member Carlina Rivera, who represents the district and supported the tech hub's rezoning, were present at Wednesday's meeting. Rivera has yet to say whether she supports the 3 St. Marks Place air rights transfer.

Like other parts of the city, St. Marks has buckled to gentrification over the years, with the closings of small independent mainstays, such as St. Mark's Comics and the emergence of chains. But the community is still fiercely protective of the three-block strip, which has retained some of its charm with an eclectic jumble of street vendors, tattoo and piercing parlors, and souvenir shops.

“This is one of the most historic streets in the East Village,” said Richard Moses, the president of the Lower East Side Preservation Initiative, during the meeting. Moses said he was “disheartened” that the developer was planning to tear down a pre-existing 19th century building 3 St. Marks Place, most recently home to the restaurant Korilla BBQ. But he also objected to the design of the office building.

“It doesn’t have that spirit, that soul that we would hope to have here,” he said.