A long-vacant lot on East 164th Street in Morrisania is now the target of new construction plans, with permits filed for a four-story residential building holding 18 units. The site sits between Boston Road and Hilton White Way, just blocks from the Prospect Avenue subway station served by the 2 and 5 trains. Per the applications, Shimon Neuman is the owner behind the project, with Madison Tower LLC associated with the property’s ownership.
According to New York YIMBY, the proposed building would rise 52 feet tall and include a penthouse atop a steel-based structure, with a 37-foot-long rear yard. The development is expected to yield 8,569 square feet of residential space across 18 residences, which the outlet notes are most likely rentals based on the average unit scope of 476 square feet. Mohammad Ahead, PE, is listed as the architect of record. No demolition permits will be needed since the lot is currently vacant, and no estimated completion date has been announced.
A Recent Sale and a Familiar Filer
The parcel has changed hands before. In September 2023, HK Organization sold a three-property package — including 988 Boston Road, 992 Boston Road, and the vacant lot at 585 East 164th Street — to Griffon Ventures for $3 million, a transaction that worked out to roughly $110 per square foot and covered two multifamily buildings plus the empty parcel, according to Traded. The initial New Building permit applications for the site were submitted on August 18, 2026, proposing the four-story, 18-unit structure, as confirmed by Marketproof.
Neuman’s Madison Tower LLC has been active elsewhere in the borough this year. The firm filed permits for an 11-unit project at 1327 Leland Avenue in Soundview in May 2026 and a 19-unit building at 1450 Rosedale Avenue in Parkchester in April 2026, according to New York YIMBY, illustrating a broader pattern of small-to-midsize, four-story infill projects across Bronx neighborhoods. Engineer Mohammad Ahead, who operates Mohammad Ahead P.E. PLLC out of Jamaica, Queens, has also filed applications for other Bronx multifamily developments, including an expansion at 2835 Sedgwick Avenue in Kingsbridge Heights and a project at 633 Wales Avenue in Longwood, according to the Norwood News.
Rents Rising Faster Than Incomes Nearby
The filing lands in a submarket where rents have climbed sharply. The Morrisania/Melrose/Claremont area saw a 7.0% increase in gross rental income in 2023, the highest rent collection growth rate of any Bronx neighborhood, according to the New York City Rent Guidelines Board’s 2025 Income and Expense Study. Yet the median household income in the Morrisania and Belmont section sits at just 21% of the citywide Area Median Income as of 2023, per research from the Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development, a gap that raises questions about who can actually afford the new units this and other private projects are bringing to market.
The private filing arrives alongside much larger public efforts nearby. City leaders broke ground in June on River Commons, a $255 million, 17-story development on the Gotham Health Morrisania campus that will bring 328 affordable and supportive apartments plus a healthcare clinic to a former parking lot, as Hoodline reported. And in May, New Destiny Housing topped out McLean Place, a $57 million, 72-unit Passive House building designated primarily for domestic violence survivors, reaching that structural milestone within ten months of construction.
A Neighborhood With a Complicated Past
The 164th Street corridor carries its own history and challenges. The lot itself was once the site of a church building that housed an M.P. Möller pipe organ installed in 1927 before the building operated as All Saints Lutheran Church until 1971, according to records from the NYC Organ Project. The property also sits near NYCHA’s Forest Houses complex, which spans from East 163rd to East 166th Streets, where NYPD 42nd Precinct statistics registered multiple shooting incidents and homicides earlier this year, a pattern Hoodline has previously covered.
Whether the new building ultimately serves longtime residents or adds another layer of market-rate rentals to a neighborhood already straining under an affordability gap remains to be seen, since no completion date or leasing terms have been disclosed. For now, the site remains vacant, its future shaped only by the paperwork filed this week.
