Project Renewal selected as part of team to transform Greenpoint Hospital campus into housing

The Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) selected Project Renewal as part of a team that will transform the historic Greenpoint Hospital, which has been closed since 1982, into a mixed-use development. Our new Greenpoint Men’s Shelter will be part of the larger, holistic redevelopment of the historic Greenpoint Hospital campus that will also feature more than 500 homes for seniors and low-income New Yorkers. The shelter will provide 200 men with vocational training and job placements, and other targeted services to help them get back on their feet and into permanent homes.

HPD announced the development via the following press release:

CITY SELECTS TEAM TO TRANSFORM HISTORIC GREENPOINT HOSPITAL INTO AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Shuttered since 1982, the revamped Greenpoint Hospital campus will include over 500 new homes for seniors, extremely low, and low income New Yorkers and a shelter

NEW YORK, NY – The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) Commissioner Maria Torres-Springer announces the City has selected a team to lead the transformation of the historic Greenpoint Hospital site into a new mixed-use development that will feature approximately 512 units of affordable housing and a new building for an existing shelter to serve 200 New Yorkers experiencing homelessness. St. Nicks Alliance, a prominent local community development corporation, and The Hudson Companies Incorporated will lead the development of this project in partnership with Project Renewal, a nonprofit organization that works with homeless New Yorkers.

The development team successfully responded to the Request for Expressions of Interest (RFEI) that was created through HPD’s community visioning workshop series in 2015. The RFEI sought proposals for the design, construction, and management of a high quality, sustainable, mixed-use, mixed-income project for the approximately 3.4-acre site in the Greenpoint-Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn.

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Located at 288 Jackson Street in Brooklyn, the 146,100 square foot development site will include two newly constructed multifamily buildings with over 400 homes affordable to extremely-low, very-low and low-income households with approximately 21,500 square feet of community space that will provide a café, workforce development center, and community center for residents and the surrounding community. The development team will also be converting two historic buildings on the site, one into over 100 affordable homes for seniors, and the other will house two more efficiently designed shelter programs that will more effectively meet homeless New Yorkers’ unique needs, in line with the Mayor’s Turning the Tide plan to transform the City’s emergency shelter system that was built up in a haphazard way over decades.

The holistic redevelopment plan includes a network of new open spaces that will connect the Greenpoint Hospital campus with the neighborhood. Magnusson Architecture and Planning and Architecture Outfit are leading the design of the redeveloped campus. This redevelopment represents a collaborative effort between HPD and the Department of Social Services to improve the community holistically, by expanding mixed-use opportunities for a range of New Yorkers. To that end, in all three residential buildings, 30 percent of the units will be set aside for homeless New Yorkers exiting shelter and getting back on their feet, totaling more than 150 homes that will help formerly homeless New Yorkers stabilize their lives at the Greenpoint Hospital site.

The project will be completed in two phases. The portion of the campus south of Skillman Avenue will be completed first, and includes the relocation of the existing 200-bed shelter into an existing building that will be rehabilitated and a new construction multifamily building with approximately 267 units on the vacant land. The second phase includes the adaptive reuse of the main hospital building into approximately 109 units of senior housing and the new construction of a multifamily building with about 136 units in place of the demolished hospital boiler building.

The Greenpoint Hospital campus’ original six buildings were opened in 1915 to serve potential accident victims from nearby factories and warehouses. The campus was expanded in the 1930s though President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, adding two buildings to the site. All eight of the site’s buildings were constructed in the Renaissance Revival style. While the hospital was officially shuttered in 1982, one building was converted into the Barbara S. Kleinman Residence which now serves New Yorkers experiencing homelessness as they get back on their feet. . Four auxiliary buildings were redeveloped as affordable housing in the 1990s and a fifth building was converted into the Greenpoint Renaissance Center in the 2000s.

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“Project Renewal is thrilled to partner with Hudson Companies and St. Nicks Alliance on the innovative Greenpoint Hospital campus, a development that will bring much-needed housing stability and healthy living to families and seniors, as well as shelter and support services to homeless men,” said Jody Rudin, Interim President & CEO, Project Renewal. “Project Renewal has been helping New Yorkers renew their lives for more than 50 years. The homeless shelter at Cooper Park Commons will be our second shelter in Brooklyn and our eighth citywide. As we develop this shelter, we look forward to compassionately providing our new clients with the targeted services they need to break the cycle of homelessness.”