The city has tapped developers Artimus and Phoenix Realty Group to build what officials say will be the largest mass timber residential project in New York City.
The city’s Economic Development Corporation announced Monday that the companies will build more than 500 apartments on city-owned sites along the Stapleton waterfront on the North Shore of Staten Island. A quarter of those units will be set aside for households earning between 40 and 80 percent of the area median income.
The developers will control the site through a 99-year ground lease with the city and make payments in lieu of taxes equal to the value of the 485x tax break, according to EDC.
According to EDC, the two-building project will be the largest (by square footage) residential development in the city to use mass timber, a type of engineered wood increasingly touted as a sustainable alternative to steel and concrete. The project is expected to be approximately 500,000 square feet.
The superlative is admittedly for the taking, given that only a handful of mass timber projects exist in the city. In 2021, the City Council updated the city’s building code to allow for timber projects of up to 85 feet tall, or six to seven stories. Though some buildings elected to use the material before the code update, such projects required extensive approvals.
States with more active timber industries, such as Washington, Oregon, Utah, Idaho, Maine and California, have been quicker than New York to adopt codes to allow timber towers.
In 2023, EDC launched “NYC Mass Timber Studio” to find opportunities for building with the material and to provide guidance to development teams looking to employ it. Artemis and Phoenix will receive technical assistance from the studio on their Staten Island project.
Monday’s announcement comes a little more than a year after the city issued a request for proposals for the project.
The project is part of a broader waterfront development that will eventually net 2,100 apartments and a 600-seat public school. The first phase of the residential portion, a 571-unit residential project developed by Ironstate, was completed in 2016. Last month, the city broke ground on a waterfront esplanade that will connect Stapleton waterfront to Lighthouse Point and the St. George Ferry Terminal, according to the Staten Island Advance.
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