Full demolition permits have been filed for 201-207 Seventh Avenue in Chelsea, Manhattan. Located at the intersection of Seventh Avenue and West 22nd Street, the 3,700-square-foot site is occupied by four adjacent, five-story mixed-use buildings.
According to the filing, the property is owned by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). It currently houses four 52-foot-tall structures, each with four residential units and a cellar. The structures were built in 1910 and have a cumulative 72 feet of street frontage.
Although new construction permits have not been filed, the HPD has proposed a single co-op building with 26 affordable residential units and three commercial units along Seventh Avenue. The nine-story structure would have a mix of studios to three-bedroom units, a courtyard, a rooftop garden, and a recreation room. Five units will be allocated to returning households, and the rest of the units will be for residents earning 160 percent of the area median income.
201-207 Seventh Avenue is within walking distance of the 23rd Street subway station, serviced by the 1 train.
Ancora Engineering is listed as the applicant of record.
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26 units? that’s it? at this location?
So HPD is going to deliver an ugly, boring, bland, faux brick box for 26 lottery winners…
No wonder why we can solve the housing crisis!
Only 9 Floors?!? This site should be at least 12-15 floors. What a waste of such a prime site.
Finally the neighborhood blioght will be gone. Hopefully what replaces it will add to this location and not detract.from it.
blight typo
After all of these decades in letting these properties run down….this is what HPD proposes?!? 26 units is WAY TOO FEW for the site, and 5 units for returning residents (whom may or may not have financial resources) and the other 21 for people maing 160 PERCENT OF THE AMI!?! This is Chelsea….those apartments (and why a co-op, BTW? Is HPD planning on holding onto the land?) will not be affordable to anyone but a millionaire!!!
Plus, knowing HPD I bet the design of the building will totally suck too….what a waste and disapointment to the neighborhood….
I would guess that the coop will be a limited equity coop, not market rate. Residents buy in at a limited price but must sell at that price, or something not much more, hence the “limited equity” part. It is permanently below market rate, unlike Mitchell-Lama coops, which were allowed to leave the program and give equity to their shareholders thereafter. HPD uses the HDFC structure for existing buildings. I am not sure what the legal structure is for new construction. Effectively, the residents, through the coop, own the building, rather than HPD, and use the retail space income to subsidize its operation. There is probably other HPD funding to ensure the coop can afford to maintain the building. The main downside of HDFCs was that they were old walk-ups that the city had seized in the 70s and, although HPD put in the money to get the buildings in order before putting the HDFC coop in ownership, major expenses, poor management by the coop board, or difficulty collecting maintenance payments in a recession could tank the coop, and HPD provided insufficient ongoing support. I would hope that HPD has better oversight that it did when this kind of project was developed decades ago.
That said, I agree that there are too few units for this location. And, I don’t entirely understand the policy purpose of using 160 percent of AMI. Sure, their maintenance payments will bolster the coop’s income and better ensure the building’s upkeep but there are plenty of apartments that a family of three earning $160,000 can afford in the outer boroughs. It seems as though either a nonprofit landlord building something taller with more units for less wealthy people or a private developer also building taller with more such units would accomplish more.
I believe you are correct, these buildings appear to be the last of several dozen tenements in Chelsea that the city inherited in the 70’s from landlords who abandoned the city. They were all turned into HDFC’s (many on West 15th and 16th Streets), and they have worked out pretty well. So it makes sense that this site has a easement or some other requirement that any redevelopment also becomes an HDFC.
In that case, its understandable why this development a coop, but I also feel that either of your proposed solutions would work better, unless more units are built. Also, the proposed 160 AMI should be no more than 120 instead, idealy it would be 100!
Why do affordable housing units need to be in Chelsea?
They don’t. They can be built on a bigger scale in the Bronx for better results.
What a waste of a prime location.