On Wednesday, December 11th, City officials confirmed their plans for Gansevoort Square in the Meatpacking District, which, in addition to an expansion of the Whitney Museum and space for Friends of the High Line, include the construction of a brand new 600-foot, 60-story tower.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams unveiled the new vision for Gansevoort Square back in October of this year which would “transform approximately 66,000 square feet in the heart of the Meatpacking District into a 24/7 live, work, play, and learn community and cultural hub for New Yorkers.”
Adams had stated:
We’re thrilled to unveil our next big project — transforming 66,000 square feet at Gansevoort Square into 600 mixed-income housing units, a massive new open pavilion, and the city’s next cultural and artistic hub. The potential we have here is endless.”
The tower, which would be built at Little West 12th Street between Washington and West Streets, would be home to 600 apartments, the majority of which would be super-luxury. It would stand double the height of the tallest building currently in the neighborhood and two-and-a-half times the height of the adjacent Standard Hotel.
Village Preservation–who expressed outrage at the 3.5-hour public hearing (seen below) along with many other members of the public allowed to speak–writes that officials are seeking to move as quickly as possible to find a developer for the project and plan to issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) this January, leaving virtually no time for public feedback.
And though the mayor’s press release initially stated the tower would have “mixed-income housing,” Village Preservation writes that, at this time, officials are reportedly only committing 25% of the apartments in the tower to be affordable (in this case, affordable to those with an income of roughly 90% of the median income for NYC) though they say they will “aspire” to find a developer willing to make up to 50% of the apartments affordable. Even so, it’s often the case that units start off as affordable but eventually revert to market rate at some point.
The City’s reasoning behind the project’s expensive units and towering height is as follows:
- They want the expensive units to pay for the affordable ones
- The taller the building, the more expensive the luxury apartments will be
Only two more public listening sessions are scheduled for the project, the first of which is on December 19th and the second on January 7th. See here for more information or to attend.
Following the sessions officials plan to issue an RFP from developers by late January. And though the city can’t actually rush ahead with plans without approval from the City Council, the RFP would lock certain aspects of the plan in place, giving the Council the option of accepting the plan within limited parameters or rejecting it entirely.
City Council approval would likely come from the local Councilmember for the area, which is currently Erik Bottcher, though it may take years before the plan reaches the Council at all.