Huge East Harlem Development Tops Out, Announces Union Deal

HARLEM, NY — The enormous Sendero Verde affordable housing complex being built in East Harlem marked two milestones in the past week, reaching peak height on its initial two buildings and announcing a new deal to hire local residents as construction workers.

The project's first phase, consisting of a 15-story and 10-story building, will include 361 apartments, a public charter school and a 12,000-square-foot community center. It topped out last week, with an estimated completion date of 2022.

The full project, once complete, will bring 700 affordable apartments spread out over three buildings. It will also include a YMCA facility, a health-foods market and community spaces including nonprofit offices and a Mount Sinai community health center.

Meanwhile, union leaders announced Thursday that they had reached an agreement with developer L+M to hire union workers from Laborers' Local 79 to work the remainder of the project.

The deal, reached before the pandemic, allowed union members to begin working at Sendero Verde starting Sept. 1. Under the terms of the deal, half of the workers must live in East Harlem's Community District 11. Twenty percent must be formerly incarcerated and/or at-risk youth or adults, and 10 percent must be women.

"With this agreement, we’re setting a new precedent for how to build permanently affordable housing with union labor, hire locally, and create more pathways to the middle class in low-income communities of color," Mike Prohaska, Local 79's business manager, said in a statement.

The deal also brings on union workers for new housing developments in the Bronx and Brooklyn, as well as rehabilitation projects at two NYCHA sites: the Harlem River Houses I and II in Harlem, and Linden Houses in Brooklyn.

"Working in union construction has completely transformed my life and gave me a path to the middle class," Arlene Sano Henry, a resident of Harlem's Grant Houses and a Local 79 member, said in a statement.

All told, 3,182 apartments will be covered by the union's deal with L+M.

The 100-percent affordable Sendero Verde project covers a full-block site between East 111th and 112th streets and Madison and Park avenues. The site, formerly owned by the city, had been occupied by a baseball field and four community gardens, which will be integrated into the development, according to the city.

The City Council approved applications for zoning and land use variances to construct the Sendero Verde when it passed a sweeping rezoning of East Harlem in November 2017. Developers filed plans to build at the site in June 2018 and then again for a second building in Feb. 2019.

The rezoning as a whole is expected to spur the construction of 1,288 affordable housing units on the neighborhood's private development sites, but opponents believe an increase of market-rate housing will lead to gentrification and displacement of the neighborhood's long-term tenants.

Brendan Krisel contributed to this report.

Previous coverage from Patch:

• Construction On Massive E Harlem Development Begins This Summer
• Plans Filed For Second Sendero Verde Building In East Harlem
• Plans Filed For First Building In Massive East Harlem Development