Red Apple Group Erecting 10-Story Mixed-Use Building on 8th Ave. & W. 24th St.
The building, which will span 58,021 sq. ft. and contain 64 apartments, is being developed by right-wing supermarket mogul John A. Catsimatidis’s Red Apple Group. SLCE Architects is the designer. Other features at 280 8th Ave. will include 4,642 sq. ft. of commercial space, a cellar, and a backyard.
| 20 Jan 2024 | 03:44
A rendering of a ten-story mixed-use building which will go up at 280 W. 8th Ave. It is currently undergoing excavation. (
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The excavation site for 280 8th Ave., which also borders W. 24th St. (
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Excavation work is underway for a new ten-story mixed-use building at 8th Ave. & W. 24th St., a building that is being built by supermarket mogul John John A. Catsimatidis.
Designed by SLCE Architects and developed by Catsimatidis Red Apple Group, the building will span 58,021 sq. ft., 52,432 of which will comprise 64 rental apartments. These will reportedly average out at around 819 sq. feet each. Another 4,642 sq. ft will be reserved for commercial space. The 947 remaining square footage will go towards a “community facility.” The 113 ft. tall structure will stand kitty-corner across from Mt. Sinai’s Peter Krueger Clinic.
A visit to the construction site during the bitterly chilly afternoon of Jan. 18 revealed that a sizable rendering was present, as first reported by the real estate blog New York Yimby, It appeared that somebody had written the cryptic phrase “KING COVID” on the rendering in purple marker, suggesting that some residents may not welcome the project. Loud booms from the excavation work were audible across the street.
The building will be replacing a Rite-Aid that has since been demolished. Permits to do so were issued by the Department of Buildings last fall, after Red Apple Group applied for them last January via an entity called Cats 280 Eighth Avenue LLC.
Catsimatidis, a billionaire Greek-American grocery store magnate that serves as the CEO of the Gristedes and D’Agostino Supermarket chains, is the chairman of Red Apple Group. It is named after a grocery chain he founded on the Upper West Side in 1971, and holds assets in everything from real estate to the energy sector. He is heavily involved in Republican politics in NYC, and sought the party’s nomination for mayor in 2013. This was eventually won by Joe Lhota, who would lose in the general election to Bill deBlasio.
In 2019, he purchased WABC-AM 770 AM for $12.5 million. He quickly turned it into a platform for right-wing, MAGA-adjacent personalities. These include the ousted Fox TV personality Bill O’Reilly, former NYC mayor and disgraced Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, and Newsmax television host Greg Kelly. He also hired Bruce Morrow, the rock ‘n roll DJ host known as “Cousin Brucie.”
Neither the Red Apple Group nor Catsimatidis returned calls for comment on the real estate project.