A developer and a nonprofit are reading up on how to update a library into a mixed-use complex with more than 100 rent-stabilized apartments.
City officials tapped Kalel Companies and nonprofit Settlement Housing Fund to redevelop the Grand Concourse Library in the Claremont section of the South Bronx, Crain’s reported. The site at 155 East 173rd Street will become The Heartwood, complete with 113 units atop the renovated library.
The residences are all intended to be affordable, rent-stabilized units. A chunk of those units will be reserved for those previously experiencing homelessness. Amenities will include outdoor terraces, community rooms and a fitness center.
The library will span more than 17,000 square feet and include meeting rooms, study areas and a host of technological options. The New York Public Library is looking for funding to launch a temporary branch for the duration of the renovation.
It’s expected to be certified as an environmentally friendly Passive House, which would make it the first branch in the public library system to receive that designation.
There’s no estimated cost for the project available. The timeline is also murky, as the project will need to go through the land-use review procedure.
But it is part of a broader effort known as the Living Libraries initiative, designed to add more housing and services to the library system. The New Utrecht Library in Bensonhurst is being targeted for potential affordable housing additions.
Settlement Housing Fund has experience in the Bronx and a development portfolio of more than 8,900 units since its founding more than 50 years ago. The nonprofit was the agent for the entity owning the Starrett City apartment complex when Rockpoint Group and Brooksville Partners took full control in 2021.
Kalel Companies, which has preserved or redeveloped more than 4,000 homes, recently made waves when it partnered with the Masjid Abdul Muhsi Khalifah mosque on a mixed-use redevelopment of the latter’s space at 1166 Bedford Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
The venture aims to raze the three-story property and replace it with a 12-story, 94,000-square-foot building with 144 senior housing units.
— Holden Walter-Warner
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