The 731-unit Lambert Houses complex, a collection of six-story buildings spread over five blocks in the Bronx’s West Farms, may soon be demolished for 1,665 units of new affordable housing and 61,100 square feet of retail. A 500-seat public elementary school is also included in the proposal, according to DNAinfo. Phipps Houses currently owns the dated housing development, built in 1973, and city officials — notably the HPD — are on board with the facility’s replacement. The development would occur in phases, beginning in 2017 and wrapping up in 2029.
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I always liked the design of this complex, but the reasons for tearing it down are compelling – here is a deep dive into the Lambert Houses for anyone interested :
http://urbanomnibus.net/2015/04/the-bronxs-lambert-houses-and-the-two-sides-of-preservation/
I read this earlier. It’s a fascinating case, but the displacement that happens when you tear down a large, low-income development like this is generally pretty dramatic (the developers claim they will manage it in this case, but that still sounds much easier said than done). The Urban Omnibus writer cites NYCHA’s Prospect Plaza, a case in which tons of people were displaced and promised housing in the new development, which most of them won’t get – http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nycha-148m-ghost-town-article-1.1124206
This is perfect!!
It’s only too bad the city won’t do the same thing with many of the housing projects. They don’t work. Rebuild them as mixed income developments.
I agree with A. Retrofit, infill and demolish those NYCHA buildings necessary with more dense mixed use, mixed income developments.
The redevelopment of the Lambert Houses could really create a vibrant Bronx Zoo oriented corridor. I just hope the parking minimums are eliminated for this development.
This could be a model for the NYCHA.
Where do i go to apply for these buildings?
Davis and Brody specialized in packaging low income people into ‘sculptural’ contrivances — damn any sort of ‘functionally’-derived, use and culturally-informed competent programming. This was back then, to those not drunk on the kook-aid of hermetic architectural formalism, a patently untenable, not to say cruel practice. Eventually the proverbial chickens so arrogantly dismissed and sent scattering have come home to roost, demanding not cribbed tid-bits from Aalto, or Nevelson but a real, resonant, place-specific competent urbanism. Hopefully, this second iteration will be put in the hands of someone up to the task at hand, both in terms of intellectual capacity and orientation of practice.