Little Italy's Italian American museum will get a residential addition

It might be one of NYC’s lesser known museums, but the Italian American Museum is the latest cultural establishment in the city set to undergo a transformation. Developers Oved Group and Nexus Building Development Group have purchased the museum’s home at 185-189 Grand Street for $14.8 million, the Commercial Observer reports.

The development team plans to replace the existing structure with a 12-story apartment building with a retail space at the base. The museum isn’t going anywhere however. Once this conversation is complete, the museum will occupy a 6,000-square-foot space in the basement of the building—that’s five times larger than the space it has right now.

At present, the museum occupies about 1,200 square feet in the existing three-story structure with the rest set up as apartments—that space is however vacant, according to the Commercial Observer. The museum is open Fridays through Sundays, and will shutdown for two years once this Morris Adjmi-designed revamp gets underway.

The museum has owned this Little Italy property for nearly a decade, having purchased the site in 2008 for $9.4 million. Established in 2001, this museum today has a set of rotating and permanent exhibits that highlight Italian American history and culture.

Across the city, several cultural establishments are on the verge of major renovation projects including the Frick Collection, the Hispanic Society Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History.

Courtesy Google Maps

• Mamma Mia: Italo-American Museum Will Take a Break After Building Sale, Expand [CO]
• Selldorf Architects tapped for Frick Collection expansion [Curbed]
• American Museum of Natural History’s Studio Gang expansion gets the green light [Curbed]