Mark Levine proclaims candidacy race for NY Comptroller.
File photograph.
A 50-year-old constructing in Decrease Manhattan represents a brand new frontier for fixing New York Metropolis’s housing disaster.
Because of an bold redevelopment effort, a former workplace constructing at 25 Water Road has simply been reworked into over 1,300 new properties, with rents for reasonably priced two-bedroom residences beginning at simply $1,116 a month—at a time when our metropolis has a extra pressing want for reasonably priced 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 are usually not simply statistics; they characterize a future the place working households, important employees, and even our personal kids are more and more shut out of the borough they name dwelling.
Only a few years in the past, 25 Water Road was a virtually empty Sixties-era workplace tower within the Monetary District. Initially inbuilt 1969 to accommodate test processors and computer systems,it grew to become a relic of one other period—impractical for contemporary workplace use and ill-suited for our post-pandemic financial 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 Road conversion attainable, we will reimagine what our metropolis’s constructing inventory might be.
Workplace-to-residential conversions are usually not a silver bullet—however they’re one of the thrilling instruments we have now as we speak to deal with our housing emergency. With workplace vacancies nonetheless excessive, particularly in areas like Midtown South and the Monetary District, we have now an unprecedented alternative to reshape underused business corridors into vibrant, mixed-use neighborhoods.
And extra is on the horizon.
The proposed Midtown South rezoning, which I known as for in my “Housing Manhattanites” plan, would unlock the potential for brand spanking new housing throughout 42 blocks and dozens of underutilized business buildings ripe for conversion. This single change may result in the creation of greater than 9,000 new properties from a mixture of conversions and new building—together with 2,800 completely reasonably priced items. That’s not simply housing—that’s a brand new technology 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 building. In a metropolis the place time, area, and cash are all the time in brief provide, that issues.
We’re at a turning level. If we wish a Manhattan that is still numerous, dynamic, and livable—not only for the rich, however for academics, artists, immigrants, college students, and seniors—we should act boldly.
25 Water Road is greater than a constructing. It’s a blueprint.
Let’s comply with it.
