Years after announcing the hotel-to-housing conversion program, progress is finally in motion. Developers recently declared plans to transform the Hilton near JFK Airport into a housing development. According to Business Times, it will have around 300 housing units.
The redevelopment is helmed by Slate Property Group and RiseBoro Community Partnership. The $150 million conversion could make apartments available for rent within the next two years, shares developers.
According to The Real Deal, this is the first project of the 2021 state program that made $200 million available in state funding. Up to this point, no developers had jumped on the program due to obstacles tied to it. As the first to undertake a conversion, Slate Property Group and RiseBoro Community Partnership will receive $48 million in state funding for the project.
For three years, developers had been scouting sites for this project, David Schwartz, a principal at Slate, shared with the New York Times. The hotel property in Queens was already struggling with a decline in tourism and had announced its plans of closure set for June back in March. It’s expansive property and residential zoning made the Hilton a perfect fit.
60 percent of the apartments will be allocated for the homeless, and the rest for low-income households, reports The Real Deal. That’s more than the amount of units that need to be allotted for the homeless under the program. The low-income units will consist of one-bedrooms for $1,250 and two-bedrooms for $1,500.
“Converting underutilized hotel space into affordable housing will provide thousands of struggling New Yorkers an affordable home in locations that otherwise would have been inaccessible to them,” said Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado in a statement last year when Governor Hochul signed legislation for converting underutilized hotels into housing to combat New York’s housing crisis. “Creative solutions like this provide equity in housing and help families who are experiencing homelessness or instability.”