[chris08876]

Project: Gerard/East 144th and East 146th Street (Treetop Development)

Treetop Development is planning to spend about $160 million to build two 12-story rental properties in the Mott Haven section of the South Bronx that will total about 360,000 square feet.

The projects are part of a growing list of residential and mixed-use developments in the southern area of the borough as it gains traction as a lower-cost destination with easy access to Manhattan.

"I look at this area as equivalent to Williamsburg 20 years ago," said Adam Mermelstein, a co-founder and managing member of Treetop. "It has subway access, and because it has been so industrial, you can build from a fresh slate."

To put the sites together where the two buildings will rise, Treetop purchased three contiguous properties on the west side of Gerard Avenue between East 144th and East 146th streets and a corner property across from it at East 144th Street, spending a total of $20.6 million on the four sites.

The company plans to build a roughly 260,000-square-foot residential rental building with ground-floor retail space on the three adjacent sites and an approximately 100,000-square-foot rental property across the street.

Mermelstein said the firm will wait until the end of the year before breaking ground on the projects in the hopes that the 421-a program, an expired property tax break for developers who include affordable units in their projects, will be reinstated by then. The break appears to have the necessary support from both the real estate industry and legislators in Albany to be renewed.

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http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...state-20170328