NYCHA has announced a $1.5 billion plan to demolish and rebuild the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses in Chelsea. To complete the project, NYCHA has partnered with Essence Development and Related Companies, who will also work closely with residents and tenant associations to help ensure alignment among all community members.
The Fulton Houses are located between West 16th and 19th Streets and bounded by Ninth and Tenth Avenues. Not too far away, Elliott-Chelsea Houses are located between West 25th and 27th streets and Ninth and Tenth avenues. Together, the campuses currently provide 2,005 affordable and supportive housing units and house around 4,500 people.
The decision to raze and rebuild was finalized after 57 percent of the existing tenants voted in favor of tearing down the eight buildings. When complete, the redevelopment will add an additional 3,500 apartments and include a mix of income-restricted units.
Additional components will include an early childhood development center, health centers, retail businesses, an art walk, workforce training centers, and updated landscaping.
Rendering of a new community center and streetscpe (Fulton-Elliott-Chelsea Houses Redevelopment Project)
“Our administration has always put residents front and center in decision-making, and I am excited that the residents of Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses have seized their opportunity to plan their own future,” said New York City Mayor Eric Adams. “No one knows better than the residents what they and their neighbors need, and they were smart to recognize the potential benefits of completely rebuilding their campus.”
The project team expects construction to be completed in six years.
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If this massive project proceeds, where will the approx. 4,500 current tenants go while these two complexes are being demolished and rebuilt? Will it be done in stages, or all at once?
I’m assuming most of them will not return due to increased rental rates or have to go through a lottery system?
The saddest part is for many tenants their sense of “community”, will never be the same again, with so many being displaced. ☹️
The current residents are guaranteed to move back.
Great points – is there is a transition plan for existing NYCHA tenants?
The demo and construction will occur in phases.
Hopefully they will do this on the West Harlem NYCHA complexes as well.
There are large yards and surface parking lots surrounding these buildings. Why not place new skinny towers there to add more housing? Nobody would have to move out and find somewhere else to live during construction.
There’s nothing wrong with these existing buildings that proper maintenance can’t address. There’s nothing green or financially smart about tearing down perfectly viable housing. Typically, this smells of more corruption.
Look at the news the past few years with constant issues in these buildings. NYCHA’s campuses are riddled with lead, asbestos, toxic mold, and structural problems after decades of neglect and deferred maintenance. A complete rebuild is probably both safer and much more cost effective than continuing to struggle (and fail) to maintain the existing buildings.
Apparently new housing will be built on vacant land first, the current tenants moved to the new buildings before their homes are demolished for new mixed income housing. Sounds like a win win and a movement away from the Corbusier light ethos of both
Most residents agreed to this change because any change is better then this failed NYCH crime,drug,rat infested housing. NYCH Public housing is a prime live failed example of a failed State control social housing engineering policy.
nycha cannot aford such costs
This is a predictable developer land-grab. Related has had its eyes on these properties for years. I dont believe one word they say about tenants being able to move back in. The hurdles will be nearly impossible to jump over and no way will market-rate people want to pay upscale rents to share the buildings with people from the projects. Guess which tenants will be jettisoned.
Cynical much?
Not true. Manhattan Plaza is a great example of successful mixed housing : low income, arts workers, and market rate renters. It’s going on 50 years now, and has hugely successful and a big reason why we’ve had development farther west in the low 40s. We need more of that all over the city.
Manhatten Plaza was built in Hell’s Kitchen – and was a slime ball hell’s kitchen neighborhood. It was built for the low income performing/theater arts community the vast majority of whom were white. It has had a huge impact on Hell’s Kitchen totally gentrification now. It’s a damned if you do and damned if you don’t. I remember riding the bus up 10th Ave to my house on West 45th and thing about the Chealsea projects and wondering what would ever happen to them.
When they have the horror shows of public housing on the TV news, they often show plaster that was damaged by leaking drain pipes. This then becomes a lead paint and mold issue. There are many older buildings in NYC that do not suffer such problems. Granted there were aspects of construction such as the lack of kitchen cabinet doors that are subpar today. I never understood why these buildings had such serious problems with heat. Other places hire portable boilers when a major repair is required.
I realize the tenants are hard on the elevators. The lift platforms have been rusted away by people doing unsanitary things in the cars. There was also the tendency to smash the elevator door window glass. People would stick their heads in to see if the car was coming, and sometimes it was. All buildings have to have a grill on the window now.
I suspect the poor record of maintenance accounts for many to today’s problems.
There are already examples of completely converted NYCHA projects like the baychester houses in the Bronx finished in 2021-2022. Each existing tenant was guaranteed their apartment and no changes were made to the affordability or rates of each apartment, while residents now enjoy a number of quality of life improvements.
There are too many interlopers on this website, who when in doubt of the facts, instead spread suspicion, even when the proposed changes they feel entitled to comment on don’t affect them directly.
Find the facts for yourself,
or mind your own business, your own block, your own hometown.
The Baychester Houses were not torn down and new buildings built, they were significantly rehabilitated. Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses will be torn down and new buildings will be constructed.
But yes, the current tenants will have apartments in the new developments. The demo and construction will be phased. A new building will be built, tenants from an older building moved in, then the old building demoed, repeat.
There are a lot of developments where this would make sense, particularly those with smaller buildings. In other cases it typically makes more sense to rehabilitate. Rehabilitation is almost always cheaper but it this case the costs were comparable so the teardown and rebuild made more sense.
The only other NYCHA property to be demoed and rebuilt was Prospect Plaza in Brooklyn. In that case it also made more sense to demo and rebuild as I believe the buildings could not be cost effectively rehabilitated due to structural issues.