Hell’s Kitchen will get 258 affordable apartments across two buildings

The city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) has selected developers to help bring more than 250 affordable apartments to Hell’s Kitchen. HPD announced that Hudson Companies and Douglaston Development will partner with Housing Works and the Actors Fund, respectively, to construct two separate buildings on city-owned lots on Ninth and Tenth avenues.

The sites have been earmarked for affordable housing projects since the rezoning of the West Side Rail Yards—what we now know as Hudson Yards—went into effect a decade ago. Last spring, the city finally issued RFPs for the two sites, which together allow for more than 40,000 square feet of development.

Each site will be designed and developed by a different team: Hudson and Housing Works have tapped CetraRuddy to design a building at 806 Ninth Avenue, which is currently leased to New York City Transit. That agency will maintain an office in the building once it’s constructed; it’ll also have ground-floor retail (including a Housing Works thrift store) and 100 apartments. These units will be a mix of affordable and supportive housing, with some set aside for homeless New Yorkers.

At 705 Tenth Avenue, Douglaston Development and the Actors Fund will partner on a building designed by S9 Architecture. In addition to 160 apartments earmarked for very low- and low-income New Yorkers, the building will be home to a new community center operated by Spaceworks, as well as a new open space.

“These 100% affordable housing developments in Hell’s Kitchen are a long time in the making, and we need them now more than ever,” City Council speaker Corey Johnson said in a statement. “These two projects will create desperately needed affordable housing for a wide range of residents, from very low income to moderate income households. Given the severe homelessness and affordability crises we face as a City, these two projects are all the more essential.”