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West Chelsea development with 1,200 apartments gets City Council approval

The City Council has given its approval for the transfer of air rights from a set of piers located along Hudson River Park, in Chelsea, which will enable a couple of developers to create 1,200 apartments just south of Hudson Yards. Crain’s first reported on the approval, which now allows the developers to move forward with construction. Read on below for more details.

A massive residential development just south of the Hudson Yards megaproject has received the nod of approval from the City Council’s subcommittee on zoning and franchises, Politico reports.

Developers Douglaston Development and Lalezarian Properties want to bring a total of 1,200 apartments to 601 West 29th Street and 606 West 30th Street, respectively. In order to do that, these sites need to be zoned residential, and in order to build at the scale the developers want, they’re trying to purchase unused air rights from Chelsea Piers through the Special Hudson River Park District. For the project to move forward, it now needs the approval of the full City Council.

As plans stand right now, Douglaston has brought on FX Collaborative (formerly FXFOWLE) to design a 62-story building at 601 West 29th Street with 990 apartments. Lalezarian has contracted Ismael Levya Architects to design a 37-story building with approximately 220 apartments. Of the 1,200 or so units, about 300 will be affordable, and 247 of these will be located in Douglaston’s building. Both towers are located between Eleventh and Twelfth Avenues.

In addition to the apartments, both sites will have also have retail and parking. The larger of the two buildings will also have space for an FDNY-EMS station. Funds from the air rights sale will allow the Hudson River Park Trust to carry out renovations on the Chelsea Waterside Play Area, among other parts of the park.

In February this year, CityRealty reported that the developers had commenced preliminary demolition work at the site. The full City Council is expected to vote next week to seal the fate of this massive West Chelsea project.

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NYCurbed