BY GABE HERMAN | Commissioner Maria Torres-Springer, of the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, recently announced that two new affordable housing buildings will be built on vacant city land in Midtown. Both buildings will be fully devoted to affordable housing, and offer a combined 260 units.
One of the buildings will be at 806 Ninth Ave., between W. 53rd and W. 54th Sts. It will be developed by Hudson Companies and local nonprofit Housing Works. The building will have about 100 units of affordable and supportive housing, including for low-income people, some for the formerly homeless and also for people living with H.I.V.
There will also be 11,000 square feet of retail space along Ninth Ave., including for a Housing Works thrift store. And there will be office space for New York City Transit — the agency that runs the city’s subways and buses — and parking for emergency vehicles. In a separate project, Housing Works is also scheduled to open a Hell’s Kitchen Community Healthcare Center, for people with H.I.V., in 2020.
The other building will be at 705 Tenth Ave., at W. 48th St. It will have about 160 affordable units and be developed by Douglaston Development and The Actors Fund, a nonprofit that provides social services, including for people in performing arts. The ground floor will include community space for arts programs and open space to be developed by the Parks Department.
City Council Speaker Corey Johnson’s district includes the Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen neighborhoods where these new buildings will go up.
“These two projects will create desperately needed affordable housing for a wide range of residents, from very low-income to moderate-income households,” Johnson said. “Given the severe homelessness and affordability crises we face as a city, these two projects are all the more essential.”
The pair of developments are part of the city’s Housing New York 2.0, which has a goal of financing 300,000 affordable units by 2026.
“In selecting these development proposals for these critical sites in Hell’s Kitchen, we aren’t just bringing more than 250 new affordable homes to Manhattan,” Torres-Springer said in a statement. “We’re adding vital community space and providing critically needed services to some of our city’s most vulnerable residents to help them lead high-quality, fulfilling lives.”
