The transformation of the 4.75-acre Spofford Detention Center site in the Bronx’s Hunts Point neighborhood into a mixed-use affordable housing community is beginning.
On Thursday, project architect Claire Weisz of WXY architecture + urban design filed plans with the city for the first of six buildings coming to the site, a 196,335-square-foot mixed-use project with 183 apartments that will rent below market rate. New York YIMBY first spotted the filing.
The 14-story building will include a dance studio, bank, office space, child care, and a gym, according to documents filed with the city.
The redevelopment as a whole will bring 740 affordable homes to the site, some of which will reach “very deep affordability” and rent for as little as $396/month, said South Bronx City Council member Rafael Salamanca Jr. when the project was greenlit by the council in March.
Under the plan approved by the City Council, 40 percent of the project’s apartments will be set aside as permanently affordable. The remaining units will be under a 60-year regulatory period that keeps them within the affordable bracket.
The project, to be known as The Peninsula, will also include 52,000 square feet of public open space, 50,000 square feet of light industrial space, 53,500 square feet for community facilities, and 15,000 square feet of retail space. It’s estimated that 300 permanent jobs will be created as a result of the project.
The city awarded a contract to a team made up of Gilbane Development Company, Hudson Companies, and Mutual Housing Association of New York to redevelop the site, which had been shut five years prior to that, in 2016.
The development team has since brought on WXY architecture + urban design and Body Lawson Associates to design the project, and hopes to complete it in three phases, the first of which will wrap in 2021. The whole thing is due to be finished by 2024.
- Permits filed for Phase One of Spofford Redevelopment Project, “The Peninsula,” Hunts Point, Bronx [NY YIMBY]
- Bronx juvenile detention center will be reborn as affordable housing [Curbed]
- Bronx juvenile detention center’s conversion gets city council committee backing [Curbed]
- Bronx juvenile detention center’s affordable housing replacement gets new renderings [Curbed]