New Apartment Building Threatens to Greenpointify East Village

There's construction buzz in the air on East 5th Street between Avenues A and B, a sleepy block dominated by the serious skee ball situation at the Ace Bar, and the serious onion rings situation at the Black Iron Burger Shop. There, at 532 East 5th Street, EV Grieve previously documented the dismantling of a four-story house, slated to be replaced with a five-story, 10-unit apartment building. That effort is now underway, a Curbed tipster informed us, so we did a bit of leg work and found the above rendering from Issac & Stern Architects, otherwise known as the controversial penthouse kings of the East Village. The firm's website also says the steel and concrete building (with metal balconies) is five stories, but our advanced math skills have us thinking it's more along the lines of six. After checking out the plans, our original tipster wrote back: "Six stories & ten units sounds reasonable, but that building is stylistically out of sync with the rest of the block. Reminds me more of the condos going up in Greenpoint." Greenpoint, trendsetter at last.

Here's the lot where this baby is sprouting, which looks a bit wider than the renderings, no?

And here's a peek through the plywood:

· Projects: 530-532 East 5th Street [Issac & Stern Architects]
· On the way: A five-story apartment building for Fifth Street [EV Grieve]