I happened to see 62 Reade mentioned in a Fast Company story about architects becoming developers, and the example was 62-64 Reade — the commercial conversions underway by Tribeca resident and architect Eran Chen of ODA (5 Franklin Place, the glass addition on 93 Worth, the former James Hotel – now ModernHaus SoHo). And since I hadn’t mentioned the project since 2022, when they went in front of the community board for approvals, I thought it was worth a revisit.

The combination (and restoration) of the two buildings, which once housed Langdon Florist on the ground floor, will result in six full-floor condos, each 50 feet wide (since these are two 25-foot buildings). They have kept the cast iron columns inside — and of course, since the buildings are in the Tribeca South Historic District, the exterior elements were preserved as well.

There is now a website for the development; Tribecan Danny Davis of Corcoran is in charge of sales.

The buildings were constructed in 1860 and 1856, respectively, and the fire escapes on the front were added in 1917. In 1955, a couple purchased both buildings, combined the floors and ran their timecard manufacturing business there, while living on the top floor. After they died, their residence was left in state — according to the architects there are still newspapers from the 1970s on the counters. “It was like walking into history,” Chen said. There is not much info in city records, but it looks like the buildings changed hands in 1978 and were then purchased last September for $6.5 million.

(Langdon Florist left for Staten Island in 2018; they had been in that spot since 1995 and on the block since 1947.)

The addition will add a floor and a half in a structure clad entirely in metal and the shape was determined by visibility from the street and the idea that the addition would still look like two separate buildings. “It was important to us to maintain the character of each one separately, the essence of the buildings, even though you can’t see if from the street.” There will be one apartment per floor, or six units in total, plus I assume ground floor retail.