Community land trusts are on the move, claiming an NYPD parking lot for affordable housing in the East Village.
Cooper Square Committee, Housing Works and Spatial Equity will work with This Land is Ours Community Land Trust to build 131 affordable units, plus a senior center and community space on the site of an NYPD lot at 324 East 5th Street. The project, currently estimated at more than $90 million, promises to provide 25 replacement parking spots for NYPD use upon completion.
A minimum of 30 percent of The Aurea’s units will be set aside for seniors who will receive on-site supportive services, and Housing Works will offer additional social services including an adult daycare center open to the community.
Land trusts and nonprofit developers, both key players in the mayor’s Block by Block housing plan, were a throughline of remarks Monday by Deputy Mayor Leila Bozorg, Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Dina Levy, State Senator Brian Kavanagh and Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal.
“With apologies to Joni Mitchell, we are paving a parking lot and putting up paradise,” Hoylman-Sigal said.
The Manhattan borough president has greenlit 1,531 new homes, 691 of which will be affordable units, through the city’s Unified Land Use Review Procedure process since January.
The new development dubbed The Aurea, slated to be designed by SCLE Architects, is an early step toward the goal set out in Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s day-one executive order creating the Land Inventory Fast Track task force to redevelop underutilized city-owned land.
Former Council member Carlina Rivera, now president and CEO of the New York State Association for Affordable Housing, was lauded by Mamdani administration officials for her role in negotiating the handover of the NYPD parking lot during her time in City Hall.
“We had been advocating for this site for a number of years and then Carlina Rivera with the Soho-Noho rezoning was the one that said to the city that we’d like to see a portion of that set aside for affordable housing,” Steven Herrick, executive director of developer Cooper Square Committee, said. “I do think this administration is looking to collaborate more with community-based groups.”
The newly expedited land use review procedure, which can bypass City Council entirely in certain cases, may diminish local lawmakers’ leverage in broader rezoning negotiations like Rivera had for the future site of The Aurea.
What we’re thinking about: Are parking lots the right sites for affordable housing on city-owned land? What is the most underutilized city property in your neighborhood? Let me know at ben.miller@therealdeal.com.
A thing we’ve learned: The Department of Buildings has redesigned sidewalk sheds! The notorious scaffolding adorning many New York City sidewalks now comes in bright blue and yellow, and features transparent roofs.
— Spencer Davis
Elsewhere…
— Mayor Zohran Mamdani will continue to work with adviser Morris Katz despite widespread backlash over Katz’s role in Democrat Graham Platner’s campaign for U.S. Senate in Maine, reports Gothamist. Members of the Democratic Socialists of America circulated a letter last week calling on Mamdani to cut ties with Katz and his consulting firm, Fight Agency, over his work with Platner after Politico reported the Democratic Senate nominee allegedly raped a woman he once dated.
— New York City’s sports bars cashed in on the World Cup while hotels saw only modest increases far below expectations, writes The City Reporter. While the Hotel Association of New York initially anticipated that 1 million visitors would generate $300 million in hotel revenue, the association now says it expects the increase will be only $100 million. Sports bars, meanwhile, saw sales increase astronomically. Bronx Beer Hall in Belmont, for example, saw business spike anywhere from 85 percent to almost double on match days.
— The New York City Department of Investigation has launched an inquiry into the office-to-residential conversion of the former Pfizer headquarters where two supporting columns buckled last week, reports the Wall Street Journal. The MetroLoft project has been under intense scrutiny, but developer David Werner assured TRD last week that reports of the building’s impending collapse have been “blown a little bit out of proportion.”
— Spencer Davis
Closing time
Residential: The most expensive residential sale recorded Monday was $11.4 million for 15 East 30th Street, 59A. The Madison House condo unit in NoMad is new construction and 3,400 square feet. Douglas Elliman’s Justin Tuinstra has the listing.
Commercial: The most expensive commercial transaction was $29.5 million for 6025 Sixth Avenue, 2. The building is the NYU Langone Family Health Center owned by Redemptorist Fathers. The buyer is Sunset Park Health Council.
New to the Market: The highest price for a residential property hitting the market was $10.5 million for 2 East 70th Street, Unit 10A. The Lenox Hill co-op has three bedrooms and four bathrooms. Douglas Elliman’s Daniela Kunen and Priscilla Tuohy have the listing.
Breaking Ground: The largest new building permit filed was for a proposed 23,192-square-foot, 10-story building at 645 Fourth Avenue in Greenwood. Sharon Broyn of SWA Architecture is the applicant of record.
— Joseph Jungermann
