Owner Seeks 27-Story, 357-Unit Tower at 156-166 Bowery

156-166 Bowery L.P. has asked the city to rezone seven Little Italy lots for a 27-story, 357-unit building, 614 days after a lease document naming it was dated on those same lots. The application was noticed September 29, 2026, and is pending, not approved.

For a developer or owner, the filing shows how a private applicant is trying to buy density on a thin block: a map change plus a height and setback modification, with affordability attached.

Why it matters

The ask is large for the neighborhood. The site sits in the Special Little Italy District, where height and setback rules cap what can be built, so the applicant needs both a rezoning and a special-district modification. It also asks the city to map Mandatory Inclusionary Housing, the program that requires permanently income-restricted units in exchange for added floor area.

The record shows the money side moved first. A lease document dated January 23, 2025 runs from REEC 156 Bowery, LLC to 156-166 Bowery L.P. On April 7, 2025, The Raven Asset-Based Credit Fund I LLP released its lien on the same lots. Both documents cover every parcel in the assemblage.

See our other coverage on the New York market hub.

The numbers

• Proposed building: 27 stories, about 252,409 sq ft, 357 homes, 89 of them income-restricted, plus ground-floor retail.
• Site: Block 478, lots 33 through 39, covering 156 through 166 Bowery, including 158H.
• Proposed zoning: C6-11, replacing C6-1G and C6-1 districts.
• Timeline: lease document dated 2025-01-23, lien release dated 2025-04-07, application noticed 2026-09-29.
• Affordable share: 89 of 357 homes, about 25 percent.

The ACRIS entries show no dollar amount on either document, so we cannot state what the lease transfer or the lien payoff involved.

What’s next

The application enters the public review process known as ULURP. The local community board votes first on an advisory basis, followed by the borough president and the City Planning Commission, then the City Council. We have not confirmed a community board hearing date. A rezoning of this size ends in a Council vote, and the proposal can still change or fail at any stage.

Methodology: NYC City Planning ZAP project 2026M0108; ACRIS documents 2025013100291001 and 2025041100906001, with parties and lot legals pulled from the NYC Open Data ACRIS datasets.