Residential conversion underway at 180 2nd Ave.; the Ninth Ward expected to return

Residential conversion underway at 180 2nd Ave.; the Ninth Ward expected to return
Gut renovations continue at 180 Second Avenue between 11th Street and 12th Street…According to the previously approved work permits on file with the city, workers are converting the building to residential use and adding two floors in the process. Permits show that there will be one residential unit on each floor. (Condos?)As for the ground-floor retail space, the Ninth Ward was the previous tenant. That New Orleans-themed bar closed in February 2016. Earlier this year, co-owner Robert Morgan told me via email that the Ninth Ward would be returning to this space after the gut renovations.”We recently opened a updated version of Ninth Ward in London and it’s doing fantastic across the pond. We’ll be bringing that incarnation of Ninth Ward back to 180 Second Ave.,” he said in June. In the meantime, the Ninth Ward’s wooden beams and original bar are “resting peacefully in a barn in Massachusetts.”The Chicago-based Polish National Alliance was the previous owner of No. 180. The building housed the Józef Pilsudski Institute of America, which is the largest Polish-American research institution specializing in the recent history of Poland and Central Eastern Europe. (They found a new home in Greenpoint.) An LLC bought the building for $6.75 million in June 2014, per public records.Previously on EV Grieve:2nd Avenue bar Ninth Ward is closing for good on Feb. 14; building rumored to be demolished[No. 180 from August]