SL Green to build FiDi rental under Affordable New York program

REIT assembled site at 183-187 Broadway over two years

183-187 Broadway and SL Green's Andrew Mathias
183-187 Broadway and SL Green's Andrew Mathias

SL Green Realty plans to build a mixed-income residential rental tower at 183-187 Broadway under the 421a-successor program, the company announced during its annual investor conference Monday.

The real estate investment trust expects to finish construction by 2020, it said, with 30 percent of the units designated affordable. The project would be one of the first Manhattan developments to use Affordable New York, the program that succeeded 421a. It wasn’t immediately clear how many units the project will include.

The company bought 183 Broadway for $28.5 million in 2016 after shelling out $63.7 million for the other two buildings a year earlier.

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SL Green vacated the buildings and received permits in May to start tearing them down. The New York Post reported at the time that the real estate investment trust plans to build an office tower. SL Green also considered a hotel and a dormitory, the company said, but ultimately settled on mixed-income rental apartments because of the 35-year tax abatement under the Affordable New York program.

“This basically won the day,” the company’s president Andrew Mathias said during the conference. The property will also include retail space at the base, he added.

Lawmakers in Albany approved the Affordable New York program, which grants tax breaks to developers who keep a share of rental units affordable, in April.