Two slim new towers are being planned for a parcel at 495 11th Avenue, a Hell's Kitchen site better known as "Slaughterhouse."

The vacant lot near West 39th Street has been languishing for decades, primarily used as an NYPD parking lot. For decades neighborhood residents have called for the site's redevelopment into affordable housing, and it appears their wish may finally come true.

NYC Planning

As Patch reports, documents filed by the New York Economic Development Corporation (EDC) and NYPD with the city last week point to a new, 581,600-square-foot, mixed-use development sprouting from the site.

Talks are underway to build a 680-foot-tall apartment building, with 350 affordable units and supportive housing, alongside a 653-foot hotel. The project also incorporates space for social services, retail (including a 4,790-square-foot grocery and restaurant), NYPD vehicle storage, and a pedestrian walkway to the Javits Convention Center (currently undergoing redevelopment).

Now zoned for light manufacturing, the parcel will require a general commercial mixed-use designation (C6-4) to move forward. The plans also require moving the site into the Special Hudson Yards District which allows for this type of development on the West Side.

All of this of course means taking the proposal through the city's seven-month formal review process, ULURP.

NYC Planning

The site was previously home to the New York Butchers' Dressed Meat Company's slaughterhouse, a six-story Neo-Renaissance building that dated back to the early 1900s.

The city assumed responsibility for the property in 1975 and it went into disrepair in the decades that followed. Despite pushes to landmark the building, it could not be salvaged and was demolished in 1993. 

Talks to turn the site into affordable or supportive housing began in 2005, with the EDC finally releasing a request for proposals in 2015.

This latest plan for the site was presented to the city's City Planning Commission on Tuesday and will find its way before Community Board 4 on May 12, 2021 for formal review.