Harlem Public Housing Site Is Sold To Luxury Developer For New Tower

HARLEM, NY — A parcel of land on a West Harlem public housing campus has been sold to a private developer who plans to build an apartment tower, months after reports of the possible sale sparked concern among tenants.

The New York City Housing Authority sold seven lots at the Manhattanville Houses complex to the developer Grid Group on Oct. 13, according to documents posted online on Oct. 25.

The $6 million land sale, plus $22 million in air rights, will allow Grid to build a 26-story tower containing 393 apartments and a supermarket on the now-empty site at 1440 Amsterdam Ave., near West 131st Street.

NYCHA will use that $28 million to carry out "comprehensive building repairs and upgrades" at the six-building, 3,000-resident Manhattanville complex, the agency says. The sale comes after NYCHA placed the Manhattanville Houses into its PACT program, in which the agency is enlisting private developers to upgrade its deteriorating housing stock.

Construction on the new building will start within months, and it is set to open by summer 2026, NYCHA spokesperson Rochel Leah Goldblatt told Patch. Renovations at the Manhattanville Houses will start in 2024, Goldblatt said.

Patch first reported on the development plans last fall, when Grid filed plans for the new tower — though NYCHA cautioned at the time that the sale was not yet final.

The planned tower was met with concern from some tenants and members of Community Board 9, who said they had been given little input and feared that the building would block sunlight from reaching their homes.

U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat later asked NYCHA to halt the PACT conversion at Manhattanville, while City Council member Shaun Abreu and Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine both told the agency to give tenant leaders more input into the new tower.

"When NYCHA presented that they were going to make changes to the building, it didn’t seem like an option," said a 50-year Manhattanville tenant named Laura during a February meeting hosted by Community Board 9. "They made it seem like this is what’s happening, and that you either roll with it or transfer out."

It was unclear whether anything has changed since those demands were made early this year. But Goldblatt said NYCHA has done "extensive outreach" at Manhattanville Houses about PACT and the new tower, including frequent meetings with tenant leaders.

"The residents have formed a resident proposal review committee to meet with potential development partners and review project proposals," Goldblatt said. "NYCHA will move forward with resident leaders and the resident review committee on next steps for the project."

Standing nearly 300 feet tall, the new building will include about 120 rent-restricted apartments for households making up to 130 percent of the area median income — or about $121,000 for a single person. Current NYCHA tenants will be given preference for 25 percent of those units, the agency says.

Barry Weinberg, chair of Community Board 9, took issue with the planned cost of the rent-restricted apartments, which will be out of reach to the typical West Harlem resident.

"It is a missed opportunity by a city that wants to build affordable housing but had publicly owned land and didn't take advantage of it to do truly affordable housing for low-income and working people," Weinberg told Patch on Monday.

A new Associated Supermarket will occupy the ground floor of the new building — replacing a previous Associated location that stood on the same site until it burned down in 2013 — along with another 1,600 in new retail space.

A new community space for Manhattanville Houses tenants will also span 1,000 square feet of the new building, as well as 28 indoor parking spots for NYCHA tenants, the agency says.

The completed sale was first reported by Crain's. The official developer is Grid — whose other projects include luxury towers on Central Park North and in Chelsea — though the sale documents also name the Queens-based firm Lefkas Realty as a buyer.

Lefkas was connected to a previous plan to build on the Amsterdam Avenue site: a seven-story condo building that was supposed to be constructed by 2020, but never materialized.

Altogether, the Manhattanville Houses need about $223 million in repairs, including $100 million to upgrade apartment fixtures like kitchens and bathrooms, $49 million for building windows, roofs, stairs and ramps, and more funding for common spaces, utility systems and outdoor landscaping and playgrounds, NYCHA says.

So-called "infill" projects have sparked pushback at other NYCHA developments. In 2019, the agency dropped plans to build a 50-story private tower atop a playground at the Holmes Towers on the Upper East Side — which NYCHA said would raise $25 million for repairs, but which residents criticized for its size and lack of public input.

Related coverage:

• Hit Pause On Harlem Public Housing Privatization, Pols Tell City
• New 26-Story Tower Coming To Harlem NYCHA Campus, Plans Show

Have a Harlem news tip? Email reporter Nick Garber at nick.garber@patch.com.