A two-story commercial building on East 185th Street in Belmont is slated for demolition to make way for a 12-story residential tower with 52 apartments, according to newly filed permit applications. The site sits between Bassford Avenue and Third Avenue, just blocks from the 182-183 Streets subway station served by the B and D trains.
The applications, filed under the name of developer Shimon Greenfeld, propose a 112-foot-tall building at 507 East 185th Street, as reported by New York YIMBY. The plans call for 27,011 square feet of residential space alongside 5,186 square feet of commercial space, with an average unit size of about 519 square feet suggesting the residences will likely be compact rentals. No accessory parking is included in the proposal.
The lot itself, designated Block 3053, Lot 39 in municipal records, currently holds a two-story commercial structure built in 1901 and measures 1,676 square feet, according to Marketproof. Permit entries filed on September 9 describe a site plan incorporating a modest 15.2-square-foot front yard and a 22.6-square-foot rear yard, and no demolition permits had yet been filed for the existing structure as of the filing. The new building is planned as a concrete-based structure, and no estimated completion date has been announced.
A Familiar Developer-Architect Pairing
Nikolai Katz Architect is listed as architect of record on the project, continuing a partnership with Greenfeld that has become a recurring presence across the Bronx. Greenfeld, working through SCG Capital and SCG Realty, submitted building plans for more than 540,000 square feet of real estate across 69 Bronx projects over a 24-month period through mid-2026, Hoodline previously reported on a Mount Hope project from the same team.
The two have collaborated before, including on a seven-story, 38-unit building at 2764 Wallace Avenue in Allerton that launched an eight-unit affordable housing lottery in July, with units set at 80 percent of Area Median Income, per New York YIMBY. Nikolai Katz Architect is also behind two 13-story mixed-use towers proposed for 680 and 690 East Fordham Road in Belmont, which would bring a combined 190 apartments to the neighborhood.
Financing and a Neighborhood Under Pressure
SCG Capital has shown it can line up substantial private financing for these projects, having secured a $22.8 million construction loan from Popular Bank in July for a separate development at 216 East 201st Street in Bedford Park. Bronx development sites overall drew $166.4 million in commercial sales during the first half of 2024, representing 37 percent of all commercial sales volume in the borough at an average of $110 per buildable square foot.
Much of that investment has been fueled by the 485-x tax incentive program, enacted by the New York State Legislature in April 2024 to replace the expired 421-a program with updated affordability and wage rules for outer-borough developments. But the wave of new market-rate and mixed-income construction lands in Belmont.
The 507 East 185th Street proposal joins a string of similar filings across the neighborhood in recent weeks. Hoodline has covered a six-story, 54-unit building tied to a cited landlord elsewhere in Belmont, as well as a 15-story, 246-unit tower planned for Mount Hope Place. The projects described here are individual development proposals at several Bronx sites.
