City seeks developers for 11th Ave. affordable housing project

The city’s Economic Development Corporation is seeking bidders to develop a mixed-use affordable housing complex on the site of a former slaughterhouse at 495 11th Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen.

The de Blasio administration is hoping the 25,000-square-foot, city-owned property’s proximity to the Hudson Yards project, as well as the upcoming extension of the 7 train to Manhattan’s Far West Side, will make the slaughterhouse site – which now houses an NYPD parking lot – attractive to developers.

A request for proposals issued by the city encourages a completely affordable residential project preferably built without city subsidies, according to Politico. Such ambitions could be reached “through cross-subsidy from the commercial and/or community facility uses,” the city said, with private revenue from the site’s commercial development – which could exceed 100,000 square feet — funding the affordable housing component.

But the request’s language is careful to state that as just a goal, leaving open the possibility of public subsidies for the project. The deadline for responses is Dec. 11.

While the city’s request for proposals did not define specific targets for affordable housing, it set the ceiling at 165 percent of the area median income — $128,000 for a family of three, according to federal standards. The de Blasio administration hopes to build 80,000 units of affordable housing while preserving another 120,000 units in the city by 2024.

In May, Manhattan’s Community Board 4 wrote a letter to the city proposing a 322-unit, “100 percent permanently affordable building” on the site. [Politico] — Rey Mashayekhi