Request For Proposals Issued For 600-Foot High “Gansevoort Square” Residential Tower in Meatpacking District, Manhattan

The proposed 600-foot tall residential tower at 832 Washington Street. Rendering from Village Preservation's website.

In late January, the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) on behalf of the City of New York released a Request For Proposals (RFP) for a nearly 600-foot-tall, 60-story residential skyscraper at 832 Washington Street in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan. The City is planning to redevelop the public land to create 600 homes alongside an expansion of the adjacent Whitney Museum and the maintenance and operations (M&O) space for the High Line, and new ground-floor retail space. The 10,000-square-foot site for the new tower is part of the Gansevoort Square master plan which is bound by Little West 12th Street to the north; the Whitney Museum and Gansevoort Street to the south; Washington Street to the east; and 10th Avenue, West Street, and the Hudson River to the west.

While no official renderings have been released by a selected design firm or developer yet, two rudimentary visuals shown above and below aim to convey the shear scale of the overall development, which would be significantly higher than The Standard Hotel at 848 Washington Street, the current tallest building in the neighborhood. The site is currently home to the Gansevoort Meat Market and sits within a state and nationally recognized historic district.

The proposed 600-foot tall residential tower at 832 Washington Street. Rendering from Village Preservation’s website.

Below is an aerial perspective of the existing site oriented looking south.

Existing conditions.

A lineup of similarly tall skyscrapers with the proposed Ganservoort Square skyscraper and the Whitney Museum for added context is shown below with other buildings like 3Eleven in West Chelsea, Manhattan, 80 Clarkson Street in the West Village, and the former global Citigroup headquarters at 388 Greenwich Street.

Skyscraper diagram featuring Gansevoort Square and the Whitney Museum.Below are two color-coded diagrams showing the proposed expansions for each section of the city block. The Whitney Museum and its maintenance & operations space would expand by 250,000 to 300,000 square feet and 25,000 to 30,000 square feet respectively with a portion of each being constructed directly underneath the High Line’s railway platform and run alongside Washington Street. The same is seen with the panhandle-shaped green space that will separate the Whitney Museum’s extension from the new skyscraper that would rise from the northernmost corner. The ‘SDOT Area’ marks the current outline of the existing low-rise meat processing plant that would be filled in by the new construction and sidewalk reconfiguration.

Gansevoort Square land use and expansion proposal.

Another diagram below highlights the site forces that dictate the layout and relationship of the current and future buildings between one another.

Site forces diagram.

Here we see a comparison of the current and proposed property lines that would redraw the western side of the trapezoidal city block to remove the indented property line along 10th Avenue, which made room for an elevated loading dock.

Current and proposed site parameters for Gansevoort Square.

Plans call for the project, which is anticipated to be privately funded, to comply with the 485-x program, which mandates 25 percent of affordable units to be at an average of 60 percent AMI, while the RFP proposals must exceed the 485-x affordability requirements.

It has been reported that the higher end apartments will encompass between 50 to 75 percent of the total inventory and occupy more square footage in the project, while the remaining 25 to 50 percent of the residential units will be set at below-market rent prices. Officials have yet to announce plans on how to keep the latter as permanently affordable.

Village Preservation, formerly the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, is seeking to remove the pricier units, which would result in the building being downsized by 50 to 75 percent, and thus guaranteeing the remaining stock to be designated as permanently affordable housing.

Friends of the High Line, a nonprofit organization that upkeeps the High Line, would use the additional maintenance & operating space to address constraints and opportunities of increased park visitation and programming through all four seasons. Meanwhile, the last meatpackers in the Gansevoort Meat Market are expected to move out after their leases end.

The nearest subway is the 14th Street – 8th Avenue stop to the east, servicing the A, C, E, and L trains with subterranean access to the 1, 2, and 3 trains along Seventh Avenue.

The project must go through a full rezoning process and gain approval by the City Council with the final height and floor count subject to change. The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) hopes to select a developer by the end of 2025, while the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) is anticipated to begin in the fourth quarter of 2026.

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45 Comments on "Request For Proposals Issued For 600-Foot High “Gansevoort Square” Residential Tower in Meatpacking District, Manhattan"

  1. This is the dumbest massing I’ve ever seen. Why is the city prescribing where things should be? set the basic requirements, X SF cultural, X SF Highline, X SF Open space, X minimum resi units, and let the development teams propose innovative solutions?

    This is baffling to me.

    Look at the innovative solutions in the BK Cultural District. City set basic requirements and the the experts proposed great ideas leading to some fantastic architecture and land use.

  2. “The nearest subway is the 14th Street – 8th Avenue stop to the east, servicing the A, C, E, and L trains with subterranean access to the 1, 2, and 3 trains along Seventh Avenue.”
    The subterranean access between those stations was closed many years ago. There is however a tunnel between 7th Ave and 6th Ave that connects to the F and M trains southbound.
    As far as a new structure goes a design competition would make sense as an opportunity exits to make it distinctive and not shelving for humans as the renderings seem to imply.

  3. Why there? why??

  4. Ok, but it will be nice if the neighborhood builds itself up a bit around this new tower..otherwise it might stick out like a, ( well, you know..)

  5. Those “renderings” are actually atrocious. The stock skyscraper png is so funny.

    • that image comes from the village preservation newsletter/magazine who are a bunch of nimbys trying to oppose this project, so they have every incentive to make it look bad/silly

  6. This is the result of the “Let’s build everything as tall as we physically can”. Do we really want a city that looks like this? This completely ruins an historic area.

    The City of Yes was a fever-dream cooked up by REBNY to make billions of dollars more. Does anyone think a little affordable housing will solve anything?

    This building is almost as stupid as building it in Central Park.

    • You don’t seriously think that rendering is what this will look like do you?

      • Another scraper-hater. Well I say the taller the better. What’s truly ironic about you people is your reaction when you visit Shanghai: “wow! Look at all the tall buildings; it’s like this is the city of the future! They are clearly putting America to shame. With this skyline, China is the future; America is the past…”
        Hypocrisy of the highest order. Fortunately, city planners are right through the hatred of excellence, and will build ever taller buildings straight through your house.

      • Some can’t read, so they’re here just for the pictures 😂

        • AnthonyJVasquez | February 5, 2025 at 1:41 pm | Reply

          If you think people can’t read now, wait a few more years after the effects of our president getting rid of the Department of Education 🫠

          Welcome to America 🚽

  7. I much prefer the taller of the two renderings. The shortest building isn’t attractive at all. As for where the building is located, I think that it is a great addition (the taller one) to the neighborhood/community. The sorta affordable housing is a plus. I suspect that this will lead to further development of the neighborhood. In some way.

  8. Redevelopment is wonderful, development of natural areas and rural farm areas is terrible. Go for it guys ❤️

  9. Yes-because it will bring hundreds of construction jobs-But no as the area is more historical

  10. The first rendering is totally out of sync with the surroundings- I’d MUCH rather see 2 x 30 story towers ( 3 x 20 story)
    This ‘out of sync’ thing reminds me of the tower next to the Manhattan Bridge

  11. bob the builder | February 4, 2025 at 4:25 pm | Reply

    I’m all for building more housing, but this is way out of scale. Match the standard hotel in size or at most 10% more.

  12. not usually a nimby but feels a little too tall. It’s a lovely sunny area that benefits from less height. maybe when the city remembers the tourists over there they’ll chop it.

    • We want tourists to react to New York skyline in the similar way that tourists react to Shanghai’s skyline. Actually, since this is the greatest city in the world we’re talking about, we want to place the tourist in a state of shock and awe when he steps off that airplane–shock and awe that exceeds what’s anticipated from the Shanghai tourist. But in order to deliver awesomeness that’s befitting of the greatest city in the world, we’ll need the political and financial will to get it done. I’m sure the New Yorker is hip with it, but, are the politicians? Do they have the political and financial will to get it done? Does their will match the will of the Shanghai city planners?

    • bob the builder | February 6, 2025 at 5:36 pm | Reply

      Agreed – not a little too high. It’s obscene.

  13. I wonder if TDRs will be required. Sometimes requiring TDRs actually helps retain the existing low scale structures. If one takes a never build up philosophy, it eventually backfires(particularly in a high demand location like most of Manhattan). Also, anyone who think the Whitney even remotely looks historic, needs to have their head examined. That block is already quite compromised and if it is in a historic district it should be delisted and placed in a design overlay district.

  14. Is this the start of Hudson Yards South?

  15. The comparison with the Citi Headquarters is the most appropriate. With the right design that blends and elevates the neighborhood, height won’t matter. The Citi HQ is the same height, also in a mostly mid-rise neighborhood, but its beauty gives it a positive impact.

    Get a good architect. I’ll be fine.

  16. a few quick fact checks about the planned tower:

    Height: It would be far and away the tallest building ever constructed in Greenwich Village or the Meatpacking District, about double the height of its nearest rival, and two-and-a-half times the height of the nearby Standard Hotel. It would be nearly 15 times the height of the average Meatpacking District building and nearly 10 times the height of the average Manhattan building.
    Density: It would be one of the densest buildings ever constructed in New York. The floor area ratio (a measure of density for buildings) would be almost 20 times the average Meatpacking District building, 15 times that of nearby Westbeth, seven-and-a-half times that of 2 Fifth Avenue, and twice the density of the Empire State Building.
    Affordability: Only 25% of the units are required to be “affordable,” though the City hopes a developer will come back with a proposal to make more of them affordable. So 75% of the units can be extremely expensive ultra-luxury apartments that may serve as pieds-a-terre. But because the luxury units can be larger than the “affordable” ones, they may occupy more than 75% of the tower. And while the so-called affordable units will be cheaper, they are only required to be affordable to households whose income levels are actually higher than the majority of NYC renters, making the “affordability” quite modest at best.

    • Height: so what? Manhattan changes. It has always changed. The Standard Hotel was decried as “out of context” and now it’s the context.
      Density: this is not how density is measured ANYWHERE in NYC. Density is measured across the entire lot, not just on the building footprint.
      Affordability: the more market-rate units, the less $ the City (aka you and me) have to kick in. So a bigger building can provide all the affordable and use the market rate to pay for them.

    • Why are you copying and pasting text from Village Preservation’s website Arnelo? At least have the decency to site your sources instead of looking like a bot

      • AJKerry
        last time I checked this was a free country and why don’t you have the decency to make a sensible comment instead of playing the Gotcha game

        • Telling anyone to make a “sensible comment” from someone with your horrible track record of racist, sexist, immature, and outlandish commentary on this site is egregiously hypocritical of you to say🙄

          • AJKerry,
            I have NEVER MADE A RACIST OR SEXIST COMMENT on this site !
            Just stop your obsession with tracking me and just make an intelligent comment

        • [Last time I checked] you’ve been the worst keyboard warrior on this site for years and made a (bad) name for yourself as Guesser(s). Stop starting sh#t and focus on your day job dude

          • I retired a long time ago now stop the detective work and make a friggin comment on the article or rebut my comments Dude.

          • Rita Carlyle | February 7, 2025 at 8:46 pm |

            This ‘clap back ’ and strong sense of denial by Arnelo sounds like a page torn out of the orange Cheeto’s playbook.

  17. Beware.
    Unfortunately (they mentioned) this is an expensive zip code. The way they calculate the median income for Affordable Housing is the grab the highest earners, and take a 60% approach based on extremely well heeled earners. So the Affordable ends up affordable for those who are doing better than average. This played out in Hudson Yards- they worked to keep it all nicely pointed as private property, while using public land! There’s no striving peoples living there. So. Beware the trickery of these “amazing redevelopments”.

  18. I’m pretty sure the Citi Headquarters referenced in the diagram is their current headquarters – just a few minutes south on the river – at 388 Greenwich St, in Tribeca. Their former headquarters in Queens is completely irrelevant to this and not the shape of the one in the diagram.

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