A 50-year-old constructing in Decrease Manhattan represents a brand new frontier for fixing New York Metropolis’s housing disaster.
Because of an formidable redevelopment effort, a former workplace constructing at 25 Water Avenue has simply been remodeled into over 1,300 new houses, with rents for inexpensive two-bedroom flats beginning at simply $1,116 a month—at a time when our metropolis has a extra pressing want for inexpensive housing than ever earlier than.
It’s the most important workplace to residential conversion in American historical past.
We’re within the grip of the worst housing affordability disaster in our Metropolis’s historical past. Market rents have skyrocketed to unsustainable ranges—$5,368 per 30 days on common, with two-bedrooms usually exceeding $6,500. These costs will not be simply statistics; they symbolize a future the place working households, important employees, and even our personal kids are more and more shut out of the borough they name residence.
Just some years in the past, 25 Water Avenue was an almost empty Nineteen Sixties-era workplace tower within the Monetary District. Initially inbuilt 1969 to deal with verify processors and computer systems,it turned a relic of one other period—impractical for contemporary workplace use and ill-suited for our post-pandemic economic system.
Now, we commerce area for computer systems for area for individuals.
With the ability of good coverage and daring considering that made the 25 Water Avenue conversion attainable, we will reimagine what our metropolis’s constructing inventory might be.
Workplace-to-residential conversions will not be a silver bullet—however they’re some of the thrilling instruments we now have at the moment to deal with our housing emergency. With workplace vacancies nonetheless excessive, particularly in areas like Midtown South and the Monetary District, we now have an unprecedented alternative to reshape underused industrial corridors into vibrant, mixed-use neighborhoods.
The excellent news is that the momentum is actual. Following the latest passage of the “Metropolis of Sure” zoning reforms, and a brand new state-level tax incentive that encourages inexpensive housing in conversions, dozens of constructing homeowners at the moment are exploring this path. Within the Flatiron District alone, three main buildings are being repurposed to create lots of of latest houses. In just some years, the conversion of the previous Pfizer headquarters in Midtown East will carry with it 1,600 new houses, a good bigger endeavor than 25 Water Avenue.
And extra is on the horizon.
The proposed Midtown South rezoning, which I referred to as for in my “Housing Manhattanites” plan, would unlock the potential for brand new housing throughout 42 blocks and dozens of underutilized industrial buildings ripe for conversion. This single change may result in the creation of greater than 9,000 new houses from a mixture of conversions and new development—together with 2,800 completely inexpensive items. That’s not simply housing—that’s a brand new era of Manhattanites who can afford to remain, work, and lift households right here.
These conversions are additionally usually sooner and extra sustainable than ground-up development. In a metropolis the place time, area, and cash are at all times in brief provide, that issues.
We’re at a turning level. If we wish a Manhattan that continues to be numerous, dynamic, and livable—not only for the rich, however for academics, artists, immigrants, college students, and seniors—we should act boldly.
25 Water Avenue is greater than a constructing. It’s a blueprint.
Let’s observe it.
