New York state is seeking to turn a former correctional facility into affordable and supportive housing in Manhattan’s popular Chelsea neighborhood — where CoStar data shows the market asking rent per unit is about $2,000 more than the city average.
The state has issued a request for proposals to redevelop the former Bayview Correctional Facility, located at 550 W. 20th St. in West Chelsea, into a primarily residential development with supportive housing, affordable housing, and on-site community uses that will “reintegrate” the structure into the surrounding neighborhood, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office said in a statement Tuesday.
Empire State Development, the state’s economic development arm, will field the proposals for the state-owned 100,000-square-foot site.
"We are expanding the possibilities of what former prisons and other unused state properties can become,” Hochul said.
Opened in 1931, the art deco brick masonry building became a state-run, medium-security women’s correctional facility in 1974 before it eventually was closed due to flooding sustained during Superstorm Sandy in 2012, Hochul’s office said.
The market asking rent per unit in the Chelsea market, where the building sits, has risen to $5,040, about $2,000 higher than the city average of $3,071, CoStar data shows.
“Owners have continued to push rents upward as this remains one of the most popular neighborhoods for renters,” according to a CoStar analysis.