Richard Lobel
2:26:01
Happy to discuss that directly, and then I'd ask Alejandro if he has any additional comments.
2:26:05
So, we've got an applicant here who is really engaged and has been attending community board meetings since prior to his application, really wants to dig in and see what he can do as far as this community is concerned.
2:26:17
The first thing is that he and his partners have experience with similar commercial space with MyHub Studios in Bushwick.
2:26:23
Again, over 95% occupancy, they take in local artists.
2:26:27
And I think the creativity is they allow them to come in in small studio spaces, 2 100, 2 50, 300 square feet.
2:26:35
There's recording studios in there.
2:26:36
There's wellness professionals.
2:26:38
So it's an it's a project which has really been embraced by the local community.
2:26:42
Similarly, here, given their prior experience, they intend to engage the local community and allow for this local utilization.
2:26:49
We heard the community board's opinion in terms of that studio space.
2:26:53
And Alejandra and I have talked about the fact that we will make an effort of both both within the local community as well as through the Bronx borough president's office to engage local stakeholders and get more local people into that space.
2:27:06
It, frankly, it makes the most sense for people in the area to use that commercial space, and we're going to make every effort to do so.
2:27:13
The second thing with regards to the commercial use generally, Alejandro has already reached out, to various commercial potential commercial tenants, most importantly to, to he's looked at potential food stores and also looked at potential bank branches of particularly, desirable use in terms of the opinion of, deputy speaker Ayala.
2:27:34
And so we've made that outreach already.
2:27:36
He and his partner have experience with certain banks, and so they've been able to do that.
2:27:40
And we also, would just, as an aside, bring up the fact that this is in a fresh food eligible area.
2:27:46
And so we've talked internally about bringing a fresh application after potential rezoning in order to ensure, a food store will be utilizing the site.
2:27:55
So all of that together with, the other uses in the building, we think make this, as the chair said, a very exciting project, and we're looking forward to, further engaging the community in order to do that.
