New renderings have been revealed for Highbridge, a 31-story residential building under construction at 1387 University Avenue in Highbridge, The Bronx. Designed by Magnusson Architecture and Planning PC and developed by Samaritan Daytop Village, the 333,508-square-foot structure will yield 422 units comprised of 125 affordable homes, 190 supportive housing units, 106 transitional housing units for families, and one unit for the superintendent, as well as 5,300 square feet of common spaces. The fully electric development is aiming for Passive House certification and will be located on a 45,453-square-foot interior lot overlooking the Harlem River between Boscobel Place to the north and Highbridge Park to the south.
The main rendering above depicts an aerial perspective looking south at Highbridge and the Harlem River below, with the Manhattan skyline visible farther south. Below is another aerial view of the building from the opposite perspective showing the nearby arched High Bridge walkway. The tower’s façade is depicted composed of gray brick framing a staggered grid of two-story floor-to-ceiling windows on the podium and broad eastern and western elevations, while the slender northern and southern faces are clad in glass curtain walls partially shrouded by a screen of metal louvers. Some setbacks on the lower levels are shown topped with landscaped terraces, and the structure culminates in a flat parapet capped with a raised canopy.
1387 University Avenue. Designed by Magnusson Architecture and Planning PC.
The property will be surrounded by an expansive green space with meandering walkways, benches, and fountains, as seen in the following renderings.
1387 University Avenue. Designed by Magnusson Architecture and Planning PC.
1387 University Avenue. Designed by Magnusson Architecture and Planning PC.
1387 University Avenue. Designed by Magnusson Architecture and Planning PC.
1387 University Avenue. Designed by Magnusson Architecture and Planning PC.
Highbridge will rise on the site of a former Carmelite monastery that was later converted into a men’s residential treatment center in 1982. The residential program was relocated before the demolition of the historic structure in early 2024. The developer preserved portions of the building’s original front portico among other design elements, including select stone, wood, and metal components, and plans to integrate these features and materials into the new building’s interiors and landscaping.
Sixty percent of all the units will be set aside for formerly homeless families and single adults. Residential amenities will include on-site laundry facilities, an outdoor rooftop recreational space, walking trails with landscaping designed by Terrain-NYC, and 24/7 security.
1387 University Avenue will also provide 100 program staff to support the permanent and transitional residents’ social services needs. These include recovery-oriented and trauma-informed case management, services for substance use recovery and prevention, primary health and behavioral healthcare support, recreation and wellness programming, employment and benefits services, and long-term housing placement and aftercare services.
The nearest subway station from the development is the 4 train at the 170th Street station to the east along Jerome Avenue.
The project broke ground on December 5, 2024, and is being completed with the help of $335.4 million in financing from City, State, and private organizations.
Highbridge is expected to complete construction in June 2027, and is aiming for full occupancy by mid-2028.
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When I lived up the road from this in the 1970s, there was a convent on the site.
Works nicely with the bridge..
Mismatched windows are a design trend that needs to go away. They’re not as bad as cantilevered buildings that loom over their neighbors, but they still look just awful.
All current trends do eventually go away, to be replaced by newer trends..
Great project!
“… 190 supportive housing units, 106 transitional housing units …” Not to sound mean or anything, but that area badly needs an injection of regular middle-class people in order to begin to approach normalcy (the way it once was). It’s already well overrun with Sec 8, subsidies, and halfway houses of all kinds. It doesn’t need even more dysfunctional types cruising the local streetscape.
Totally agreed.
On the one hand, this is the nicest supportive housing I’ve seen, on the other hand, why are they dumping more troubled folks in the neighborhood that has a high enough poverty rate as it is.
But I will praise the architecture, this will be a beautiful addition to a really pretty location. The views will be so great, it makes you wonder how this wasn’t aimed at gentrifiers but for the homeless
The “regular middle-class” fled that area in the early 1970s. The opening of Co-op City emptied out the West Bronx bringing in a lower income population. I know conditions are better now than when I lived there, but it has a ways to go.
the reason is because it already is a rather decrepit old shelter site. i walked by it often after work to walk on the high bridge. i have heard rumors about it becoming a modernized tower for a long time.
Great project. We’ll see after it’s finished.
Hopefully the facade materials don’t look flat and cheap. That would be a real shame with such a high visibility project in such a sensitive location.
I hate racism
How in gods name is this project racist??? Such a random radical statement
LOL what?
You wanna point out where the racism is in the article or project? I don’t see nothing crazy but you
After the immigrants were expelled, the population in these renders appeared to be diminished: Thanks.
I never understood what exactly the term “Families” means. Does for Families means that single people that don’t have any children nor a spouse are not worthy of nice new place to live.
Must take a bus to the subway for this location. The Bronx is the 2ist century NYC home for the poor. Face the fact.
Three words: Ogden-University Subway
It’s time for the 3-Train extension to the Bronx
The building should be all affordable housing, we are in the Bronx friends
Uh, it is?
“422 units comprised of 125 affordable homes, 190 supportive housing units, 106 transitional housing units for families”
The Bronx is viewed as having more low income housing for needy people than any other place.A lot of folks from Brooklyn have been moving to the Bronx due to Gentrification. The prices of rents too high that working class have to pack up and move into shelters from living inside Brooklyn. The Bronx is the only place left
Market rate housing is targeting the South Bronx.
A society is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable, yes?
Can we also judge how the “vulnerable” take care of the nice things we provide them with?
This is excellent. We need way more of this.
I’m appalled how some people think a higher income bracket means “normalcy” in an area. Injecting middle or upper class in an area is not a cure-all and it only segregates existing communities. People who are well-to-do don’t suffer the impacts of gentrification as much as the working lower class do because they are too busy enjoying the view from their high rises while at ground level the streets are littered with the newly homeless who were displaced from their homes. Landlords are no help as they work to compete and gain a share of the market by selling their properties and pricing their tenants out. They will purposefully fail to upkeep their buildings until they go up in smoke. Whenever the City renovates, it is almost always a bad deal for the lower class. Currently, Jersey City residents are being displaced by new luxury high rises obscuring neighborhoods, small businesses and sky and everyone is paying higher rents and taxes to stay put at the chagrin of the wealthier newcomers. Developers are only putting 10% into affordable housing in an area with a housing crisis. It makes no sense to build 2000-5000 apartment high rises for the rich but leave millions without affordable housing and that’s politicians, foreign investors and developers sleeping in the same bed, quid pro quo, scratching each other’s backs and screwing everyone else over. The poor never get a break and as soon as they develop a strong community and a business niche in their area, all of a sudden their area becomes desirable and then they get the boot or get sold out. I’ve seen people rise from poverty to become outstanding businessmen and community leaders and they give back to their neighborhoods and speak up for the people. I’ve seen single mothers start off with little and come out with GEDS and college degrees and having the means to send their children off to better schools. Poor people don’t want to be poor or stay poor. We work hard and many of us do rise but people at the top don’t allow too many of us to escape poverty. They want to keep a workforce of dependent people too poor to have influence and have the same say as the “affluent”. I was born in Sleepy Hollow, raised in the Bronx in a single parent home but my father’s side was “middle class”. I saw both sides of the same coin. They treated my Mom like a charity case and even when I grew up, they tried treating me the same way. I don’t have respect for people like that. Reading some of these comments reminded me of my father’s side of the family. They think and talk just like you. It’s disgusting. You are willing to destroy communities of hardworking people for the sake of a good view.
Your luxury buildings block the view of the natural world and block the sky and force more people and traffic within the confines of a few square feet. You don’t know how to stay in one place. You spread out and displace people everywhere you go. Poor people have no where to go. They make the best of what they have. They only move when they get kicked out or finally have the means to move out on their own willingly. This country was supposed to extend opportunity for every person and every family. It shouldn’t be a battle of social-economic classes. Though I don’t favor the rich, my anger is at the policies that allow the rich to pilfer. Yes, the rich steal. They steal way more than poor people do and that’s a lengthy discussion for another day. I hate what’s happening to ethnic communities in NYC and New Jersey. We spilled blood on these streets. You don’t know what that means to call a block yours. We fight to keep what is ours but you use your money to take what isn’t yours.
Millions of people left NYC in the 1970s and it had nothing to do with poor people moving into the Bronx that caused the rich to leave. We were always there. The rich always ditch when NYC hits rock bottom and its the working poor that get left behind and do what they can to keep themselves and the city still running. The rich ditched again in droves after 9/11 and during the Pandemic and stayed in their second homes and worked from home offices. Only when the rent started dropping did they want to come back. Now, with the inflation the rich can’t even afford to stay in Manhattan and they chopped up their condos into bnb rooms for rent. The Bronx has always been the most affordable borough for decades.
You fail to mention the fires that almost destroyed the Bronx. The landlords tried to burn us out just like the landlords tried to burn out the poor folks in Hoboken all so that they could collect, rebuild and invite you yuppies in and make waterfront properties strictly for the rich. You talk like your money can bring back the Bronx’s former glory but you are only investing in yourselves. We know you don’t care about the Bronx or the people that been there for generations. We know you don’t care about the culture and the history. We know you don’t give a damn about the poor.
I’m moving back to The Bronx!!!
Be aware of the Conservation Fallacy; the mistaken belief that Just because a building looks large on the outside, don’t assume the interior space is also large. this is by design. its a misconception Space.
The “Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy” – If a developer emphasizes certain appealing aspects (like the building’s grand exterior or amenities) while downplaying the reality of small unit sizes. It would be helpful to see the unit’s floor plan.
I’d be shocked if set-aside units are anywhere near as large as market-rate ones—there’s no incentive for them to be. They’re classified as “low-income” units, but that doesn’t necessarily mean tenants earn less than the Area Median Income (AMI); the way “low income” is calculated for set-aside units is completely different.
This is the economics of HPD: profiting off low-income housing while claiming to address homelessness. They’ve figured out how to guarantee their revenue from rental assistance, but that shouldn’t come at the cost of livability for low-income residents who can’t even afford the gym. Madness.
One thing all these HPD properties have in common is that they’re selling amenities. Parking can cost as much as $300 a month, and the gym fees are higher than Planet Fitness. The real draw is convenience, which justifies the high rent. But for residents in set-aside units, quality of life often takes a hit. These units tend to be much smaller because they’re subsidized to maximize profits, especially if tenants don’t pay into the amenities.
why my previous comments not listed. they disappear.
Facade Illusions – The exterior may be designed to look grander, with decorative elements that make it seem larger than it is.