Hell’s Kitchen slaughterhouse site will get 234 affordable apartments

In the fall of 2015, the city put out a call for proposals to redevelop the site of a former slaughterhouse in Hell’s Kitchen, and now, that call has been answered, in the form of a mixed-use tower that will offer only affordable apartments, the Wall Street Journal reports.

After reviewing the options, the New York City Economic Development Corporation tapped development duo Radson Development and Kingspoint Heights Development to transform the lot at 495 11th Avenue, which, most recently, has been serving as an idyllic NYPD parking lot.

Set to stand just under 500 feet, the future tower will house 200,000 square feet of office space, 80,000 square feet of dorms, a 12,000 square-foot grocery store, assorted amenities—a gym, a food court—and, perhaps most crucially, 234 affordable apartments, to be subsidized by the commercial space.

It’s a feature for which the community board and local city council reps have been gunning hard. “To get a 100 percent affordable housing project on a city-owned site is huge for this district,” New York City council member Corey Johnson told the WSJ. Daniel Rad, a principal at Radson, agreed that the chance to make a dent in the area’s dearth of affordable housing was part of the project’s appeal.

While the development still has to co through the city’s zoning process, the developers are hoping to break ground in fall 2019 and finish work sometime in early 2022.

• NYC Picks Development Team for West Side Mixed-Use Tower [Wall Street Journal]
• Affordable Housing May Rise on Former Slaughterhouse Site [Curbed NY]