Work Starts On Affordable Housing, Lidl Supermarket In Chelsea
The new 188-unit property will help Penn South protect its affordable housing developments.
CHELSEA, NY — Work started Tuesday on a 188-unit development that will include affordable housing and a Lidl Supermarket — developed in tandem with a co-op that protects affordable units with a profit-limiting model.
Some 30 percent of units in the development, which sits at West 26th Street near 8th Avenue, will be affordable housing rentals, and the rest will be rented at market-rate, according to developers MAG Partners. The project is expected to be complete in 2025.
“Let’s take a moment to think about what this is going to mean to the 57 families who get to live in this building. Many of whom right now are living in our shelter system,” City Council Member Erik Bottcher said at Tuesday’s groundbreaking.
“Let’s recreate that hundreds of times, thousands of times.”
A 23,000-square-foot Lidl supermarket and ground-level retail space will replace what used to be a McDonald’s and Gristedes.
The seven-story building sits near Penn South, an affordable housing co-op including 15 buildings that protects affordable units by limiting owner profits on property resale. The buildings all sit between Eighth and Ninth Avenues from 23rd Street to 29th Streets.
“There is no profit on the sale of apartments; when cooperators leave Penn South, they are entitled to a return of the equity that they paid,” the co-op wrote on its website.
The profits from this new development will help Penn South maintain its other properties’ affordability.
Penn South, formally named Mutual Redevelopment Houses, teamed up with MAG in 2021 facing financial troubles and repairs, TheRealDeal reported.
“Home to nearly 5,000 New Yorkers, Penn South is a beacon of access and equity in the heart of Manhattan, — and it will stay that way, thanks to the project we’re celebrating today,” said Ambur Nicosia, Penn South Board President, in a statement.
Electeds celebrated the groundbreaking as a model for affordable housing across the city.
“Let’s go out and do this again and again and again,” Bottcher said.
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