A Brooklyn-based developer has filed plans to replace an Upper East Side church with a mixed-use building (Google Maps)
A real estate developer who earlier this year bought an Upper East Side church has filed permits to replace it with a new structure.
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Robert Saffayeh paid $11.8 million for the Church of St. Elizabeth of Hungary at 213 East 83rd Street (between Second and Third avenues), which in 2015 was relocated to another Upper East Side church–the Church of St. Monica at 413 East 79th Street (between First and York avenues)–due to low attendance.
Saffayeh only filed permits to demolish the four-story church earlier this month, according to New York YIMBY. In May, several nearby residents had filed complaints that the church had been doing late-night demolition work without a permit, the NY Post reported. At the time, a DOB spokesperson told the outlet “…that construction workers were performing an interior gut renovation” and “removing construction debris from the site with the use of construction vehicles” without any permit, leading them to issue a partial stop-work order. A spokesperson for the Archdiocese of New York said they were simply “[removing] items of liturgical, historical, and monetary value for storage for future use.”
Now, New York YIMBY reports, plans call for the construction of a seven-story, 75-foot-tall mixed-use development with nine apartments, “most likely condos based on the average unit scope of 1,004 square feet.” According to the outlet, the new building will also come with a 4,038 community facility space, “a cellar, four enclosed parking spaces, and a 30-foot-long rear yard.”
The new building will be designed by DOME Architecture, Design & Engineering.
I don’t think any of the old parishioners will be purchasing one of those swank condos.
Hope the doors and windows can be salvaged.
Why go to all the trouble of tearing down a church, to build a structure that is so tiny? Does this developer have some philosophical objection to buying air rights?