Dive Brief:
- The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) announced Thursday their plans to transform the site of a former Bronx juvenile detention facility into a $300 million mixed-use and affordable housing development dubbed The Peninsula.
- The 5-acre site of the Spofford Juvenile Detention Center will soon see 740 affordable housing units, a public plaza and recreational space, a light industrial component, artist and community facilities, and 21,000 square feet of retail and commercial.
- Peninsula LLC, a joint venture between Gilbane Development Company, Hudson Companies and the Mutual Housing Association of New York, will develop the project in three phases, with final completion set for 2024. According to the NYCEDC, the project will generate 1,600 construction jobs, as well as 177 permanent positions when it is complete.
Dive Insight:
Peninsula LLC has also agreed to a 35% minority- and women-owned business participation goal and will work with HireNYC, an NYCEDC offshoot that helps with local hiring. Spofford operated for 50 years on the project site and was under consistent fire from activists over allegations of mistreatment and substandard conditions. This announcement should finally alleviate fears that the facility, shut down in 2011, would reopen as another juvenile facility.
This project isn't the only initiative in the city to transform underutilized tracts of land into either mixed-use or residential developments. Most recently, AECOM proposed a 246-acre residential development for Brooklyn, a 45,000-unit project twice the size of Battery Park City and almost nine times that of the 28-acre Hudson Yards development in Manhattan.
While the AECOM project is still on the drafting board, the mixed-use Hudson Yards, which boasts commercial and residential high-rises as its mainstay, will provide an estimated $18.9 billion economic boon for the city by the time it is complete. An Appleseed study also determined that Hudson Yards will comprise 2.5% of New York City's gross domestic product and net the city $500 million in yearly taxes.
