Julienne Schaer

The longtime taco vendor on Governors Island has won the bid to develop Building 140, which is right next to the ferry dock at Soissons Landing, as a year-round, three-part restaurant and event space. Construction should begin in winter 2024 and be completed in fall 2025.

The team behind Taco Vista will be joined by the founders of Alphabet City Beer Co. and the Michelin-starred chef of Schilling in Fidi, Eduard Frauneder, who got his star at Seasonal and also had Edi and The Wolf, Bar Freud and The Third Man. The group will have the entire 10,000-square-foot building to develop, in addition to outdoor spaces.

When open, this will add a lot more off-season action on the island. Right now there is the QC NY spa and Makina Cafe, plus Joe Coffee in the Battery Maritime Building on the Manhattan side.

The island opened to the public year-round in 2021 in preparation for the development of the southeast side of the island for the New York Climate Exchange, a research and educational institution led by Stony Brook University. There are other year-round tenants: the Urban Assembly New York Harbor School, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Billion Oyster Project, Beam Center, the Institute for Public Architecture, and Buttermilk Labs, a new multi-tenant hub for coastal climate solutions.

Taco Vista has been on the island since 2018 in a spot just on the other side of 140 from the ferry dock. They will be tasked with restoring the building and completely renovating the 10,000-square-foot interior 10,000 into three distinct venues: Priscilla’s, a year-round café serving coffee, pastries and light lunch with an expanded Mediterranean menu on its waterfront terrace; The Riverline, an indoor-outdoor full-service restaurant that will have the ability to host special events; and a reimagined Taco Vista serving Mexican fare and drinks.

Building 140 was constructed in the mid-1800s as a munitions warehouse and used over the years as a bank and a post office during the island’s history as a US Army and Coast Guard base. The design team will be led by SHoP Architects and the building will be one of the first adaptive reuse project on the island with 100 percent electric operations and the potential for generating solar power on the roof.