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By: Hadassa Kalatizadeh
A currently vacant lot across from the Jacob Javits Convention Center is slated to be transformed into a 72-story skyscraper apartment tower and a 28-story hotel. As reported by the NY Post, the project planned for the Hudson Yards District, will feature close to 1,400 apartments, of which 404 (or 30%) would be permanently affordable, per the Empire State Development Corporation.
Gov. Kathy Hochul selected a four-member development partnership as “conditionally designated” to build the tower and a Hilton-branded hotel at 418 Eleventh Ave. between West 35th and 36th streets in the Far West Side of Manhattan. The hotel would include 455 rooms, which would come in very handy for Javits Center attendees. Amenities will include a fitness center, meeting rooms, and a rooftop overlooking the Hudson River. The project will also include a 5-story structure, featuring a 24,000-square-foot Climate Museum, which will occupy three floors and focus on climate change and climate solutions.
The selected development team, collectively known as the Hudson Boulevard Collective, includes publicly traded BXP (formerly Boston Properties), Joseph Moinian’s well-known New York-based Moinian Group, BRP Companies and the Urbane Group. BRP and Urbane will be minority owners, and together will hold 31% of the total shares. The project is to be named HDSN.
As per the Post, the expansive project is slated to cost $1.35 billion. FXCollaborative was named as the lead architect. The site is located one block from Related Companies’ Hudson Yards complex and diagonally across from Tishman Speyer’s The Spiral, a 66-story office building. For years, NYS has been planning what to develop at the state-owned site.
At first, the ESDC, under former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, planned to choose a developer to turn it into a mostly commercial project. Since then, however, the office market has been ailing, and adding much-needed housing has become the state’s major priority. This led Gov. Hochul to call off the original request for proposals initiated in 2021, and to issue a new RFP in July 2023 for a mostly housing project.
Developer Don Peebles had been working on a well publicized proposal for the “Affirmation Tower”, which would rise to over 1,600 feet. That project, which included no housing, has now been scrapped. Because the state owns the land, any project there would be exempt from city zoning rules, but it still needs to undergo environmental review and take public comments.
Per Crain’s, this project still needs to go through both the environmental review and public comment period before its final approval. The project will be financed completely through private funds, the Hochul administration said. The newly planned 72-story mixed-use skyscraper likely won’t see construction begin for another 3.5 years. The residential portion of the tower is to be completed first, before the hotel. In a bid to alleviate the housing crisis, Gov. Hochul has prioritized identifying state-owned sites that can be used for housing. This parcel, on 11th Avenue, known as Site K of the Javits Center, is one of the last remaining state-owned parcels in Manhattan. Similarly, the city has been targeting site that it owns for residential projects. NYC recently announced that a parking lot in the East Village, currently used by the NYPD, will be transformed in a project creating between 50 and 100 homes, Crain’s reported.
ESDC chief executive and president Hope Knight said the Hudson Yard site’s development “represents a pivotal moment in the evolution of the Far West Side.”
