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70 Mulberry Street Rebuild Breaks Ground in Chinatown

The City broke ground on the $160M rebuild of 70 Mulberry Street in Chinatown. SRE provides community outreach and QA/QC on the project.

November 9, 2026

6 min read

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The City of New York and the NYC Department of Design and Construction (DDC) today broke ground on the reconstruction of 70 Mulberry Street, the Chinatown civic building gutted by fire in January 2020. SRE is on the project team, providing community outreach and quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) through construction.

70 Mulberry Street is a $160 million reconstruction that will become an 8-story, 80,000-square-foot, all-electric community center.
The project returns 51,000 square feet to five displaced Chinatown institutions and adds 16,500 square feet of new public meeting space and a multi-purpose gymnasium.
DDC is delivering it under CM-Build, a method the agency says can save up to two years of project time.
SRE keeps residents, local businesses and returning tenants informed, and supports the quality program through field inspection and documentation.

Why this matters now

Today’s groundbreaking on Mulberry Street marks the move from planning to building on one of Chinatown’s most important civic sites. Nearly seven years after the fire, the City is rebuilding 70 Mulberry Street as a home for the organizations that served the neighborhood there for more than 40 years.

The building was designed by C.B.J. Snyder and opened in 1892 as Public School 23. In the mid-1970s it became a Chinatown community center. On January 23, 2020, a fire severely damaged it and displaced its tenants, including the Museum of Chinese in America.

The five resident institutions named in the City’s design presentations are the Museum of Chinese in America, the Chen Dance Center, the United East Athletics Association, the Chinatown Manpower Project and the Chinese-American Planning Council (CPC) Senior Center. For these groups, every month of schedule is a month away from home.

Dancers in red and black perform a fan dance in Columbus Park, Chinatown, during the 70 Mulberry Street groundbreaking celebration

A fan dance performance in Columbus Park opened the day’s celebration.

What is being built at 70 Mulberry Street?

70 Mulberry Street will be an 8-story, 80,000-square-foot, all-electric community center that keeps the historic facade and corner stair tower. The design, by Grimshaw Architects, pairs solar design with restoration of the original masonry.

The program has three parts:

Space for returning tenants: 51,000 square feet returned to the five displaced institutions.
New public space: 16,500 square feet of community rooms and offices, plus a multi-purpose athletic gymnasium.
Building systems: new mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) and fire protection systems, three elevators and three egress stairs for code compliance and accessibility.

The community rooms are designed to change shape. A seventh-floor pair of rooms converts from a 96-seat lecture layout to a 30-seat workshop with a folding partition. The ground-floor lobby can host events of up to 120 people.

The project also carries a permanent public artwork. Through the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) Percent for Art program, artist Jennifer Wen Ma is creating a suspended sculpture for the atrium that uses salvaged fire debris.

Exhibit 1: Bar showing the 80,000-square-foot program at 70 Mulberry Street. 51,000 square feet (64%) returns to five displaced institutions, 16,500 square feet (21%) is new community rooms and offices, and about 12,500 square feet (16%) is lobby, circulation, building systems and gymnasium.

Why is DDC using CM-Build?

DDC is using CM-Build to shorten procurement and bring the builder in during design, which the agency says can save up to two years on 70 Mulberry. Under CM-Build, the City hires a construction manager through an accelerated request for proposals (RFP). That firm then holds the trade contracts for labor, materials and services.

New York State law now allows the method for libraries and cultural institutions, and 70 Mulberry is one of five projects in DDC’s CM-Build pilot. The construction manager is the Hunter Roberts ZD-Jasper joint venture. DDC set significant Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprise (M/WBE) participation requirements for CM-Build contracts.

Early builder input matters most on a building like this. The City’s design team noted that geotechnical data and the construction manager’s input were needed to confirm the strategy and cost of saving the historic facades.

Exhibit 2: Timeline of 70 Mulberry Street from the January 2020 fire to forecast completion. Construction runs from the November 9, 2026 groundbreaking to a forecast of February 2030.

What does SRE do on the project?

SRE provides community outreach and QA/QC services on 70 Mulberry Street. Our role is to keep the neighborhood informed and to help the project build it right the first time.

Community outreach. Construction in the heart of Chinatown affects residents, street vendors, local businesses and the tenants waiting to return. We keep them informed about work hours, street and sidewalk impacts, and milestones, and we route concerns back to the project team.

Quality assurance and quality control. We support the project’s quality program through field inspection and documentation. That means checking work against the contract documents, recording what was installed and when, and tracking deficiencies until they are closed.

Lion dancers and performers celebrate the start of construction in Columbus Park, steps from 70 Mulberry Street.

Where projects like this get into trouble

Rebuilding a fire-damaged historic building in a dense neighborhood combines three kinds of risk.

Hidden conditions. Fire-damaged masonry and old foundations rarely match the drawings. Surprises found late become change orders and delay.
Lost trust. When neighbors hear about closures or noise after the fact, complaints and political pressure follow, and the schedule pays for it.
Thin records. On a long, multi-trade job, missing inspection records make closeout, commissioning and future claims harder to resolve.

Three moves for owners rebuilding in occupied neighborhoods

Bring the builder and the inspectors in early. Use design-phase reviews to test facade retention, excavation and MEP routing before bids, not after.
Fund outreach as a line item. Name a single point of contact, publish a look-ahead in the languages the neighborhood speaks, and log every concern to closure.
Document as you build. Set up daily inspection reports, photo logs and a deficiency tracker from day one so closeout is a summary, not a search.

How SRE can help

SRE is a Hispanic woman-owned, M/WBE-certified construction management and engineering firm based in New York City. We provide construction management, resident engineering and inspection, QA/QC, community outreach and owner’s representation on public and private projects. For public owners, our work can count toward M/WBE participation goals. Learn more about our services or contact us to discuss your project.

See the 70 Mulberry Street project page. Related reading: Passive House and Local Law 97: the CM’s view and our post on what a resident engineer does on DEP and DDC projects.