Project EATS expands with office at Essex Crossing

Manhattan, NY Delancey Street Associates, a joint venture of Taconic Partners, L+M Development Partners, BFC Partners, the Prusik Group, and the Urban Investment Group within Goldman Sachs Asset Management, negotiated a new 3,449 s/f office lease at 175 Delancey St. with Project EATS, an arts organization that transforms rooftops and open lots into neighborhood-based farms, supporting farmstands, pantries, prepared food, and community programs across New York.

“We’re proud that Project EATS calls Essex Crossing home,” said Matt Strombelline, senior associate, development, Taconic Partners. “Having an office at Essex Crossing will help connect the organization and their locally-grown produce even more directly with the Lower East Side community.”

Project EATS is already an Essex Crossing tenant. The not-for-profit, founded in 2009 by artist and activist Linda Goode Bryant to address food scarcity through art as a catalyst for social change, has operated a quarter-acre rooftop farm at 125 Essex St. since 2019. The organization’s other locations are in East Harlem, Brownsville, Randall’s Island, and Belmont.

The Essex Crossing farm, which sits atop The Essex, the 26-story, Handel Architects-designed building that also includes a mix of 195 market-rate and affordable apartment homes and a 14-screen Regal Cinemas, conducts healthy lifestyle workshops, neighborhood forums, programming for public school students, as well as offering free Saturday breakfast for seniors living the community.

“For Project EATS, this office is an integral part of delivering on our mission to reconnect people to their imaginations, their creativity, and their ability to use the resources at their disposal to create what they need and want in their communities – through art, urban agriculture, partnerships, and social enterprise – in order to live healthily and thrive,” said Bryant. “Essex Crossing has been a great home for us, and we’re excited for this expanded presence at this location.”

The Project EATS rooftop farm and new office are part of a mix of retail, cultural, and entertainment tenants that all bolster Essex Crossing’s overall residential and commercial ecosystem.

Another neighborhood amenity set to open at Essex Crossing this year is VITAL, a 24-hour, full-service fitness and rock-climbing gym, located at 182 Broome St. and comprising 45,000 s/f and three levels of bouldering, yoga, cycling, open weightlifting, fitness classes, and climbing instruction, as well as workspaces and a large indoor public garden.