Entire Upper East Side Block To Be Demolished

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — Say goodbye to First Avenue between East 80th and 79th streets, because it may never look the same again. Developers have filed plans with the city Department of Buildings to demolish every single building on the east side of the block to make way for the neighborhood's next giant building.

Plans to demolish 1514-1528 First Ave. were filed at the beginning of May, according to public records. Each building is a four-story low rise with ground-floor retail space and apartments.

One of the buildings, 1528 First Ave., currently has a stop work order against it from 2005, according to the city records. The order was issued for renovation done without a permit and does not seem connected to current plans to demolish the building.

In March, Extell Development's Gary Barnett told real estate publication The Real Deal that he plans to develop a mixed-use building with at least 250,000 square feet of buildable space on the block. The recently-filed demolition plans indicate that the new development could begin rising on the Upper East Side sooner rather than later.

The new development will likely consist of a residential tower with a school building at its base, Barnett told the Real Deal. One school has already reached out to the developer, but no deals have been made at this point. The assemblage took Barnett more than a decade to put together, he told the Real Deal.

"When everything crashed in 2008 and 2009, we sold most of it," Barnett told the real estate publication. "But eventually, we saw an opportunity to buy the properties back and complete the site."

Photo by Brendan Krisel/Patch