Stephen Rex Brown The lot on 13th Street

Earlier today, the International Business Times reported that hotelier Andre Balazs and his partners at Ironstate Development in Hoboken, N.J. purchased the Cooper Square Hotel for $67.5 million – not the $91 million that first made headlines. The Local has now discovered that The Standard East Village isn’t the only place in the neighborhood where Mr. Balazs’ partners have been active – Ironstate is also involved in a project that will develop one of East 13th Street’s most talked-about properties.

Last month, developer Charles Blaichman purchased the set of long-vacant lots on 13th Street between Second and Third Avenues for $33 million. City finance records show that one of Mr. Blaichman’s partners was Applied Development Company, headed by brothers David and Michael Barry – the same pair that runs Ironstate Development.

A spokesperson for Ironstate confirmed that the brothers are involved in both the 13th Street property (along with Abram and Scott Shnay) and the Cooper Square Hotel deal.

Though plans for the hotel’s future transformation into The Standard East Village are rapidly taking shape, the future of the 13th Street property remains a mystery. Ironstate’s spokesperson could not elaborate on the plans for those lots, where a homeless woman’s body was found stuffed inside a trunk in 2004.

These latest moves reflect the brothers’ gradual movement into the Manhattan real estate scene. The Barrys previously developed the W Hoboken hotel and several other properties in Jersey City, and are also involved in the development of Staten Island’s Stapleton Waterfront. The Times interviewed David Barry in May.