On Wednesday, the City concluded its incredibly meager “public engagement” process for developing a huge publicly owned plot of land north of the Whitney Museum in the Meatpacking District. This is set to be followed by the City issuing a Request for Proposals (RFP) to developers to build a 600-ft.-tall tower at West and Little West 12th Streets, which would include 300-450 units of super-luxury housing and 150-300 units of modestly affordable housing. While any such project will require a rezoning process and City Council approval, the RFP will lock in place many key elements of the plan, and we have been fighting to change those terms.

At those meetings, when asked about the possibility of building an even larger tower than the planned 600-ft.-tall structure on the site, City officials said they would be receptive to such a possibility if circumstances allowed.

Village Preservation has highlighted how ludicrously oversized the proposed building would be compared to its surroundings, and how outrageously densely the City was trying to shoehorn space into this site, using a floor area ratio (a zoning measure of density that is the ratio of space in a building compared to the space on the site it sits on) that’s almost 20 times as great as the average Meatpacking District building, and about double that of the Empire State Building. We’ve also highlighted how the 25-50% of the building that may be “affordable” will only be very modestly affordable, with income requirements that are on average too high for most NYC renters. We also pointed out the fallacy of the City’s claim that including the planned super-luxury apartments will ensure the affordable apartments are delivered more quickly; a similar scheme for producing affordable apartments 15 blocks to the south at Houston Street is still not completed nine years after approval by the City. 

It’s critical that we get the City, and especially our local elected officials (who must ultimately approve this project), to change this plan, eliminating any super-luxury housing from this public site. Removing the overpriced housing would reduce the size of the planned tower by 50-75%, making it much more in context with its surroundings. 

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