Skyscrapers On Vacant Hell's Kitchen Lot Inch Closer To Reality

HELL'S KITCHEN, NY — The proposal to build a pair of residential skyscrapers on a long-vacant lot in Hell's Kitchen inched closer to reality this week, as the city developers filed plans to begin construction.

The plans call for a 680-foot-tall apartment tower containing 275 affordable units, as well as a hotel building standing 653 feet in height. The city-owned lot on 495 11th Ave., near West 39th Street, is known as "slaughterhouse" for the meatpacking business that stood there until the 1990s.

To be built, the city must rezone the site from M1-5, a zoning code designed for light manufacturing, to C6-4, a dense type of zoning found in major business districts. Having wound its way through the city's monthslong public review process, the proposal has now reached the final stage in the City Council, where members must vote whether to approve it by Nov. 8.

Unlike some contested rezonings, however, the slaughterhouse development is facing little, if any opposition — in no small part because neighbors have been given significant input into the project for years.

Starting in the early 1900s, the site was home to the New York Butchers' Dressed Meat Company's slaughterhouse, a six-story Neo-Renaissance building that was taken over by the city in 1975. It was demolished in 1993 after it was declared structurally unsound and became an NYPD parking lot, which it remains to this day.

Starting in 2005, Community Board 4 began pushing to develop the site into affordable housing, winning a commitment from the city as part of the Hudson Yards rezoning process. It picked up again in 2015, as the city's Economic Development Corporation began seeking development proposals.

Community Board 4 voted unanimously to support the project in June, citing "decades-long advocacy" by board members and praising the plans' inclusion of affordable housing and a supermarket.

The new construction application — first reported by New York YIMBY — was filed by the city's Economic Development Corporation. The 57-story residential building will have 358 total apartments, including 75 supportive housing units for formerly homeless people and families, while the 56-story hotel will include 680 guest rooms

The buildings will be designed by Gene Kaufman Architect, a firm whose other projects include the Radisson Hotel at 525 Eighth Ave., the Hilton Homewood Suites at 312 West 37th St. and a residential building at 76 Eighth Ave. in the West Village.

At the base of the two towers will be a commercial podium, consisting of nearly 8,900 square feet of office space, a 4,790-square-foot supermarket, a hotel lobby, a restaurant and a pedestrian walkway to the Javits Convention Center.

Construction will be completed in 2025, according to planning documents filed in April.

Previous coverage: 2 Skyscrapers Proposed For Long-Vacant Hell's Kitchen Lot