LOWER EAST SIDE — Top New York developers including Bruce Ratner are clamoring for a chance to help build 1.65 million square feet of prime real estate on the Lower East Side, according to a report.
Bids for the long-delayed Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (SPURA) — a 6-acre, mixed-use development planned for vacant blocks along Delancey Street — were due on Monday, according to the New York City Economic Development Corporation.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Barclays Center developer Bruce Ratner was among those expected to compete for the project.
Officials at Forest City Ratner Companies, where Ratner serves as chair and CEO, declined to comment.
Other interested developers include Related Companies — the firm behind the Hudson Yards — along with Taconic Investment Partners and AvalonBay Communities, the paper said.
The EDC may pick a single developer for the entire site or may split it among several developers. Some of the private companies are teaming up with nonprofits to submit bids, the Journal reported.
For example, Forest City Ratner plans to work with Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, the paper said.
And Asian Americans for Equality — a housing and social services nonprofit — plans to work with Related, Hotel on Rivington developer Paul Stallings and Urban Green Builders' Eric Anderson, the paper said.
Although the SPURA project has languished with multiple false starts since the 1960s, the current plan got the green light from city planners. It combines retail and office space as well as 1,000 apartments, 50 percent of which are slated to be permanent affordable housing.
The EDC and the developers and nonprofits named in the Journal article did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
