New 28-Story Roosevelt Island Tower To Complete Decades-Long Project

ROOSEVELT ISLAND, NY — A new 28-story apartment tower is set to rise on Roosevelt Island, marking the completion of a brand-new neighborhood that has been in the works since 1999, developers announced last week.

The new 357-unit, 300-foot-tall building will take shape on a now-empty lot on the east side of the island, just north of the Queensboro Bridge. Construction will start within weeks, now that developers Related Companies and Hudson Companies have secured $185 million in construction financing, they said in a news release last Monday.

It will be the ninth and final building of Riverwalk, a 19-acre complex with more than 2,000 apartments that was approved in 1997. Years earlier, the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC) had begun seeking proposals to redevelop the area known as Southtown, ultimately selecting the Hudson-Related plan.

Once it is completed in mid-2025, the new Riverwalk 9 building will contain 253 market-rate apartments, plus 104 homes reserved for employees of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center — as envisioned in the original plans for the complex. (All told, 40 percent of Riverwalk's apartments are affordable, including the fully-affordable Riverwalk Park building completed last year.)

Also included in the new tower will be ground-floor offices for RIOC, a fitness center overlooking the East River, a basketball court, and an outdoor common area containing a dog run, grills, and public open space.

Part of Firefighter's Field, the next-door sports field, will be closed to the public and covered with scaffolding during construction, according to Roosevelt Islander. An existing dog run on the future building site will be temporarily moved to Firefighter's Field, until the new building and its dog run are complete.

The new Riverwalk neighborhood will help fulfill Roosevelt Island's master plan, first laid out in 1969 by architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee.

Besides Riverwalk, the Related-Hudson developers also own 33 stores along the island's Main Street, having taken over a master lease in 2011 when the corridor was half vacant. Since then, the street has been transformed with renovations that added outdoor seating, signage, lighting and benches, reviving it as a "vibrant shopping area," developers say.

"The start of work on Riverwalk 9 marks the culmination of a quarter century of work with our partner to build an entirely new and thriving neighborhood on Roosevelt Island," said Hudson CEO David Kramer in a news release.

Shelton J. Haynes, president and CEO of RIOC, said work on the new building will mark "the final phase of years of historical development."

"I cannot wait to get shovels in the ground to unveil our latest investment that will continue the tremendous economic boom we are experiencing," he said.