Prospect Development files plans for 9 apartments on single floor in Garment District commercial

Prospect Development Group submitted a major alteration application for a rehab of 109,416-square-foot commercial building (COM) at 229 West 36th Street in the Garment District, Manhattan. The plan was filed on May 6, 2026. It calls for a conversion of the 12th floor of the 121-foot-tall, twelve-story building and was filed with the New York City Department of Buildings under job number M01395574. The project is described in the filing as: application filed to convert the twelfth (12th) floor of the existing twelve (12)-story commercial building to residential use as per plans. The applicant is the Registered Architect Kao Hwa Lee of Kao Hwa Lee Architects Pc. Konstantin Gubareff of Prospect Development Group submitted the plans.

Cayre Equities and A&H Acquisitions bought the building for $19.2 million in May 2025.

The neighborhood

In Garment District, The majority, or 69 percent of the 52.3 million square feet of commercial built space are office buildings, with hotel buildings next occupying 13 percent of the space. In sales, Garment District has the 10th highest sale turnover among other neighborhoods in the city with $1.4 billion in sales volume in the last two years. For development, Garment District is the 6th most active neighborhood among other neighborhoods. It had 11.5 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 22 percent of the neighborhood’s built space.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of nine of the 15 commercial properties representing 2,292,932 square feet of the 2,386,056 square feet. The largest owner is Alram, followed by Cayre Equities and then Diana Rundo.
There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The Owner

The PincusCo database currently indicates that Cayre Equities owned at least 12 commercial properties in New York City with 686,040 square feet and a city-determined market value of $117.4 million. (Market value is typically about 50% of actual value.) The portfolio has $186.4 million in debt, with top three lenders as Bank Hapoalim, Santander Bank, and TD Bank respectively. Within the portfolio, the bulk, or 63 percent of the 686,040 square feet of built space are industrial properties, with office properties next occupying 24 percent of the space. The bulk, or 55 percent of the built space, is in Manhattan, with Brooklyn next at 26 percent of the space.

The surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 229 west 36 street, PincusCo identified 11 commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
Of those 11 items, four were for major renovation including a certificate of occupancy change. They were three permit applications with a total initial cost of $1.6 million and one permit with a total initial cost of $2.1 million. The most recent of these four items was the filing on January 7, 2026 for a 93,000-square-foot residential (R-2) building with 166 residential units at 254 West 35th Street.
Of those 11 items, seven were loans above $5 million totaling $134.7 million. The most recent of the seven was Diana Rundo in which borrowed $5 million from Maspeth Federal Savings secured by the 49,300-square-foot, 15-unit industrial (E1) on 222 West 37th Street on May 7, 2026.

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