NYCEDC issued a request for proposals to redevelop the city-owned "B-East" site on Second Avenue between East 125th and East 126th Streets in East Harlem, and it's worth being precise about what kind of solicitation this is: it's a search for a development team, not a general contractor. A GC won't get picked until after NYCEDC picks a developer.

The ask is roughly 140 mixed-income housing units plus ground-floor retail and community space, with a 30% M/WBE participation goal built into the RFP. NYCEDC held an optional site visit August 18, and responses are due by 5 PM ET on Tuesday, October 20, 2026 — call it seven weeks from today.

“Nobody pours concrete on this corner yet. Right now it's a proposal deadline, not a jobsite — but every GC line on this project starts with October 20.”

The site sits blocks from the 106th Street Station shell the MTA just put under contract as part of Second Avenue Subway Phase 2 — the same corridor, the same stretch of East Harlem, tunneling and station work already ramping up nearby. Any developer team that wins this site inherits a jobsite next to active transit construction, which means utility coordination and street-level staging will be part of the conversation from day one, not a surprise discovered in permitting.

There's no bid to chase here yet, and no subcontractor scope to estimate. What a GC or trade contractor can do now is get in front of the development teams likely to respond — the 30% M/WBE goal means whoever wins will need certified subs lined up well before shovels, and that outreach works better started early than after a developer's already been picked. Full RFP and vendor resources are posted at NYCEDC's own site; once a developer is selected, subcontractor opportunities would typically route through PASSPort.