Developer Eyes on The Bronx: Construction Boom Pushes Melrose to the Top

The construction boom across NYC and The Bronx is rapidly transforming our borough and now a new report shows that the South Bronx neighborhood of Melrose had more new residential units approved than any other in the borough.

In fact, Melrose placed third in New York after Long Island City and East New York according to a new report by Localize.city.

Between July 1, 2017 and July 1, 2018, a total of 1,027 units were approved in Melrose as per the report which indicates that these units are slated to open starting 2021.

Bronx Common’s Bronx Music Heritage Center which is under construction in Melrose

During the last census in 2010, Melrose was identified as the third fastest growing neighborhood in New York City and that doesn’t seem to have let up so it will be interesting to see what happens in the upcoming census.

Just take a walk through the neighborhood and you’ll see cranes and construction sites everywhere including the massive La Central which will have just under 1,000 units and Bronx Commons which will house the Bronx Music Heritage Center.

As for the rest of the borough, seven of the top twenty neighborhoods on the list were in The Bronx and are as follows:

  • Melrose, 1,027
  • Mott Haven, 733
  • Crotona Park East, 731
  • East Tremont, 705
  • Longwood, 560
  • Bedford Park, 470
  • Tremont, 417
La Central, currently rising, will have just under 1,000 residential units spread across 5 buildings from Westchester Avenue to 153rd Street.

Just these neighborhoods alone have 4,643 units that have been approved during that cycle, greatly adding to the inventory in our borough.

Localize.city reports:

Bronx is ascendant

All of the neighborhoods Localize.city identified as seeing the biggest uptick in permits this year — in addition to East New York — were in the Bronx. Bedford Park, for example, saw more permits filed in the first half of this year than in all of 2017.

From 2010 through 2015 (including 2015), about 13 percent of the city’s approved residential units, on average, were in the Bronx. Drilling down further in this time frame, in 2014 and 2015, only about 8 percent of the approved units were in the Bronx. However, since 2016, the borough saw its share of construction bloom. The number of approved units in the borough jumped to more than 23 percent in 2016; in 2017, the Bronx had 24 percent of the approved new units; and in the first half of 2018, it had 27 percent of the approved new units.

“Here’s another way to look at the shifts: over the last 2.5 years, about 12,000 units were approved in the Bronx, which is roughly the same as in Manhattan,” Schwartz said. “For reference, in the six years between 2010 through 2015, Manhattan had almost triple the number of approved units: 38,580 compared to the Bronx’s 13,438.”

We’ll certainly see these numbers increase considerably once developers begin redeveloping swaths of the Jerome Avenue Rezoning Area as well as over in Mott Haven’s Lower Concourse Rezoning Area in Mott Haven which is heating up.

The character of our borough is changing and while some say it’s for the best, we don’t necessarily buy into that.

Bronxites who need the affordable housing the most that’s being constructed aren’t the ones qualifying.

Head over to Localize.city for the full report.

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Ed García Conde

Ed García Conde is a life-long Bronxite who spends his time documenting the people, places, and things that make the borough a special place in the hopes of dispelling the negative stereotypes associated with The Bronx. His writings are often cited by mainstream media and is often consulted for his expertise on the borough's rich history.