I heard that 135 Reade, home to Reade Street Pub & Kitchen, is quietly being shopped around—and then, with some welcome assistance, I came across this listing on Epic Commercial Realty’s website:

TriBeCa
Development Opportunity
A 3-story mixed-use building consisting of 14,298 SF of development rights. The building will be delivered vacant. It is located one block from the [1, 2, 3] trains. $8.5 million.

UPDATE: You can keep reading, if you like, but everything below this paragraph is out of date. The building’s owner, Bruce Barasky, called to categorically deny that he’s interested in selling (and I believe him). The only explanation for the listing that I can come up with is that the broker has jumped the gun, hoping to bring a deal to him that he’d be unable to resist. (And thanks to Bruce for being so gracious about it.)

135 Reade meets those criteria:

••• It’s three stories.
••• It’s mixed-use (commercial and residential).
••• It could be delivered vacant (most likely because it’s owner-occupied, but also because it’s not subject to rent-stabilization or the Loft Law). The building’s owner is Bruce Barasky, while the restaurant’s liquor license is in the name of Brian and Kevin Barasky, presumably his sons.
••• It’s a block from Chambers and W. Broadway.
••• And it’s a “development opportunity” because it’s easily demolished. Only buildings that are landmarked or within a historic district require the approval of Landmarks Preservation Commission before they can be torn down.

Technically, 134 Reade (where Marc Forgione is) also meets these criteria if the various tenants’ leases expire soon enough to promise vacant delivery. But the word on the street says the building in question is 135 Reade. (I stopped by Reade Street Pub & Kitchen to ask about the building being for sale, but a bartender insisted there was nothing to it.

The age of 135 Reade is unclear. The 1988 Landmarks Preservation Commission application for the adjacent building at the corner of Hudson and Reade included a study that said this: “Lot 434, on Reade Street, is shown to contain two brick structures on Perris and Browne’s 1867 map (see Figure 8). The three story structure shown fronting Reade Street is marked as a store on this 1867 map, while the three-story structure to the store’s rear is shown as a dwelling. By the early 1880’s the entire lot was covered by a structure running approximately half the block’s width. This lot’s depiction in Sanborn’s 1923 map, which provides more detailed structural information, suggests that the two early structures were joined together, sometime before 1895 (LeFevre 1895; Figures 9al and 19). The structure presently standing within this lot (present day 29) is occupied by ‘McGovern’s Bar and Restaurant’ (see Plate 8).”

I was unable to find out when Reade Street Pub & Kitchen took over from McGovern’s, but the latter’s liquor license expired in 1999. Reade Street Pub & Kitchen, meanwhile, was definitely open by September 11, 2001, when the pub used a generator to open shortly after the attack, so it could serve emergency workers at the site. It has since hosted a free annual barbecue every September 11.