South Bronx Gets Ready for Development

The bustling riverfront envisioned for a tattered stretch of warehouses and parking lots in the South Bronx is still many years away.

But that has not stopped the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio from going ahead with a $194 million plan to improve the infrastructure in a 30-block area on the Bronx side of the Harlem River. The plan will include making streets pedestrian-friendly, replacing water and sewer lines, carving out a new park and expanding broadband access — all in preparation for future development that, for now, exists only on paper.

In the South Bronx, where borough officials and others have worked to remake the riverfront , five acres of vacant, city-owned land is slated to become a riverfront complex that will bring 700 to 900 units of affordable housing to the city’s poorest borough as well as an esplanade, stores and businesses, and exhibition, performance and meeting spaces for community groups and others. The city also plans to acquire two and a half acres of privately owned land nearby currently used for a parking lot and two warehouses and turn it into a riverfront park.