NYC’s Biggest Affordable Housing In 40 Years

On Friday, TF Cornerstone, the chieftains of Long Island City’s waterfront development, won the City’s RFP to develop NYC’s largest affordable housing project since Starrett City and Co-Op City in the ’70s. It’ll go up across the East River from Manhattan’s 34th Street.

With 696 of the 1,193 units set aside for moderate- and middle-income renters (and another 100 for low-income seniors with an assist from nonprofit partner Selfhelp), the developer way overshot the RFP's minimum requirement for affordable units for Hunter's Point South's Parcel C, between Borden and 54th avenues, TF acquisitions and finance head Jeremy Shell (above, at a Bisnow event) tells us. (If this were the movie Office Space, TF would be the star Chotchkie's employee, with more than the minimum required flair.) Related et al are building Parcels A and B now (see our previous story here), which include 925 affordable units. The goal for the entire 30-acre Hunter's Point South is 5,000 affordable units, with four parcels left to go.

ODA's metal, brick, and glass design maxes out the site density, and Jeremy tells us more than half of the two-tower building (with two entrances) will be two- and three-bedroom units, so it'll bring hundreds of new families to the neighborhood. More than 20k SF of commercial space will include restaurants, community space for arts programs, a pre-K, medical space, and a seniors center (so one could age in place from womb to walker).