MANHATTAN — A bustling corner of SoHo is set for a makeover.
The lot on the south side of East Houston Street between Broadway and Crosby Street that's currently used as a fruit stand and a Metropolitan Transit Authority parking lot has been purchased by the real estate firm Madison Capital for $25.825 million, the MTA and Economic Development Corporation announced Monday afternoon.
The developer, which manages $1.9 billion real estate citywide, is expected to take possession of the 6,190-square-foot triangular lot in August 2014, an MTA spokesman said.
"Madison Capital looks forward to creating an exciting commercial development on Broadway and Houston Street at the gateway to Soho," said J. Joseph Jacobson, a partner in the company, in an email.
The sale of the property will fund the MTA's capital program, MTA chairman Thomas Prendergast said.
“The MTA set out three years ago under the slogan of ‘making every dollar count’ to conduct an exhaustive inventory of its real estate holdings and identify opportunities to derive the maximum possible value from real estate we own or control,” he said in a statement.
The current zoning for the site allows retail, commercial or light industrial use, city zoning maps show.
Madison Capital — which beat out eight other firms through a competitive public process — will undergo the city's public land use review process, according to the MTA, and will retain an entrance to the Broadway-Lafayette B, D, F and M train station and Bleecker Street 6 train station, which were linked together in September 2012.
The MTA emergency response vehicles that use the parking lot will be relocated to the Flatiron, according to the MTA.
Some SoHo residents said in April 2012 that they wanted to see a pedestrian plaza or public art project on the corner, not more chain stores or boutiques.
