Glass Tower To Crush Brownstone, Rent-Stabilized Apartments Into Oblivion
(Photo: ODA via New York Yimby)
A turn of the century brownstone at 436 Albee Square is set to be demolished to make room for a giant tower. Renderings released today by the Manhattan-based architecture firm ODA give us a better idea of what the behemoth will actually look like and reveal plans for both residential and retail space. Work permits were filed earlier this summer, but this is our first glimpse of the 28-story glass tower with 150 units that are likely to be apartments, many of them with balconies.
The brownstone’s disappearance isn’t a a total shocker, after all the insanely massive City Point project is going up in the immediate vicinity, but it’s representative of at least one of the ways in which rent-stabilized units are disappearing at an alarming rate throughout the city. Approximately 250,000 rent-stabilized units have been lost, many of them after 1993 when it became easier for landlords to deregulate their apartments when tenants move out (the most common route to deregulation).
It’s unclear if the new development will include any affordable housing units. Robert Perris, the District Manager at Community Board Two, told us that, as an “as-of-right” project, or one that conforms to zoning regulations, the board knows little about the project.
