Youngwoo and Associates is planning an ambitious commercial project on the eastern edge of Washington Heights. Yesterday, the firm filed plans to develop a two-tower, 18-story hotel and office building at 2420 Amsterdam Avenue, next to the Harlem River Drive and Highbridge Park.
The building would reach 266 feet into the air on a block-long site between West 180th and 181st streets. The property seems like an ideal location to attract drivers entering and leaving the city, because it sits between the Alexander Hamilton and Washington bridges – both of which direct drivers to the George Washington Bridge.
The 214,000-square-foot building would replace a now-shuttered Shell gas station. The hotel would include a restaurant, 192 rooms, and underground parking for 169 cars. The office tower would have several outdoor terraces, a gym on the ground floor, and second restaurant with outdoor space on the 18th floor.
Marvel Architects will design this project, which gives us hope that the final product will be a cut above most of Manhattan’s uninspired hotels.
Youngwoo scooped up the 38,000-square-foot gas station for just $12 million in 2013. They’re also renovating the massive Bronx General Post Office into retail and office space in Concourse Village.
Washington Heights is also set to get two large residential towers in the next few years. A 23-story building planned for 4650 Broadway is making its way through zoning approvals, and a 19-story apartment project is headed for 4566 Broadway.
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The effect of a development, use up a large supply of commercial.
Question – does the Youngwoo project require a zoning change? I think this site is C8, which would not support so much development.
As for 4650 Broadway, that proposal was for a 27 story building (under MIH the 23 story becomes 27) and it has been killed for obvious reasons of insanity (i.e. trying to propose R9 anywhere north of 110th St). It has been replaced in a late switcheroo with a new R9A/R8X zoning request, still for about double the original residential FAR but those zonings would cap the height at 175 ft under MIH, making for a very bulky building of around 17 stories. The neighborhood is livid and passage at CPC of such a wild spot zoning is not at all assured. Stay tuned on that one.
Nagle is sitting in the wings, waiting to see what happens with its big brother up the block.
Correct that they’d need an upzoning/rezoning. How do you know about the R9A/R8X request for 4650 Broadway? I don’t see that on CPC’s agenda, which says R9.