In addition to an agreement to lift worker wages to a minimum of $11.75 per hour, the Related Companies will devote an entire building on West 29th Street to affordable housing.
The 139-unit building planned for 539 West 29th Street, initially set up to be 80 percent market-rate and 20-percent affordable, will now offer 100 percent affordable housing whether it receives federal and state subsidies or not.
The apartments are to be allocated to artists, seniors and low-income community members, according to the Wall Street Journal. Related plans to transfer unbuilt affordable units contracted for the developer’s Manhattan Plaza project in Hell’s Kitchen to the site, and hopes to receive both a federal section 8 subsidy and state 421-a partial tax exemption for the move.
“The community on the West Side of Manhattan fought for years to ensure that this building would create permanently affordable housing units,” Council Member Corey Johnson, who represents the area, told the Journal.
The building is slated for completion this May. [WSJ] — Julie Strickland