Gansevoort Tower Project Draws Preservationist Ire

A local preservationist group has mounted a campaign against a planned 600-ft. luxury apartment tower on the site of the old Gansevoort Meat Market, located at Little West 12th and West Sts., which they decry as an “outrageous” private giveaway of city-owned land.

Village Preservation has unveiled what they call a “fighting plan” against the 590-unit project, partly by demanding that a trio of politicians—Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, City Council Member Erik Bottcher, and State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal—side with their concerns.

The group is pointedly blaming outgoing Mayor Eric Adams for allowing the Economic Development Corporation to move ahead with picking a developer for the site, which the city did in late October. The plans calls for the tower to be overseen by a joint venture consisting of the firms Douglaston Development and Kinwood Partners, which is going by Gansevoort Square Partners.

Village Preservation accused the Adams administration of disregarding “public input calling for the elimination of all super-luxury units from the tower and [the reduction of] its height by 50-75 [percent].”

They have been reiterating these calls since, and are further taking issue with “an unspecified number” of the planned units being designated affordable, at least vis-a-vis the building’s other pricier units.

“The actual affordability” of these apartments, the group recently said, “has not been set or defined and could be unaffordable to the majority of New Yorkers.” Instead, Village Preservation argues, any development should “include truly affordable housing that is guaranteed to remain permanently affordable.”

Gansevoort Square Partners, meanwhile, has promised to assuage these concerns in due time. According to the EDC, “the developers will exceed the affordable housing goal of 50 percent permanently affordable units stated in the Request for Proposals—with up to 55 percent of total units as permanently affordable without using City subsidy funding.

The plot of land was still leased to a longstanding meat co-op market until last year, when what Bloomberg described as “New York City’s last meatpackers” relinquished their lease early, to allow the new tower development to move forward.

In an interview with Chelsea News, Village Preservation Executive Director Andrew Berman said that his organization was “hopeful that Mayor Mamdani will reconsider the plan,” although he noted that Mamdani has yet to comment on the matter.

He also implied that he had yet to hear any solid position from Council Member Bottcher. However, Berman said that “in the past...before the [Gansevoort] developer was selected...Erik Bottcher certainly expressed concerns about the height.”

A representative for Council Member Erik Bottcher told Chelsea News that this was true, but that Bottcher was waiting on the development’s ULURP process to play out before taking a more firm position.

Berman said that State Senator Hoylman-Sigal has expressed similar concerns. Yet he noted that Hoylman-Sigal is set to become the Manhattan Borough President come January, and could have a “perspective” shift upon ascending to his new role, given that he’ll be shifting away from a strictly local—and thus perhaps more preservationist—constituency.

If such a shift “does happen,” Berman continued, “I hope it’s towards an even deeper skepticism about this plan.”

Berman also emphasized that he thinks the building should be built at a size that is “more in keeping with this neighborhood...which would mean chopping the tower down, by at least by half, in height.” Berman is pushing to have building should top out at around 300 feet

Berman expressed his skepticism of current affordability metrics, saying that “what the city calls affordable is actually way too expensive for the average New Yorker.”

The development will calculate affordability based on “Mandatory Inclusionary Housing” (MIH) zoning regulations, which cap affordable-unit rents paid by tenants based on median “area” income.

To illustrate the point, a single tenant applying for a generic MHI apartment needs to make 60 percent of NYC’s median annual “single household” income, which in 2025 comes in at about $113,400.

This means that a tenant needs to make $68,040 a year to qualify for these affordable units, such as those slated to be included in the Gansevoort development. Their rent would then typically be capped at around 30 percent of their income. Critics argue that this is too high of an annual income range to make these MIH apartments “truly affordable.”