New York City’s building permits this year tell the story of a city pulling in two directions at once. On the Upper West Side, Upper East Side, and in the West Village, longtime owners are quietly shrinking the housing stock one townhouse at a time, merging apartments back into single-family homes, the reverse of the subdivisions that created more affordable rentals decades ago. At the same time, a handful of often very expensive towers are preventing a broader net loss of housing in these areas. On the Upper East Side’s Gold Coast and around Lincoln Square on the Upper West Side, Extell Development alone is behind two of the largest projects, one on each side of Central Park, that will add new supply to these high-demand submarkets.
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Over the past five years, more than 180 buildings in Manhattan have filed permits to be converted into single-family homes, resulting in a loss of nearly 700 apartments. Seven hundred units is not enormous in a city now filing permits for 1,000-plus-unit towers, but these are also neighborhoods where very little new housing is being built, resulting in a net loss of units in some cases. The West Village alone has seen filings to convert 53 rowhouses that once held 167 apartments into single-family mansions.
105-107 Bank Street is the conversion of two rowhouses that held 15 apartments into a single mega-mansion. The home entered contract for over $70 million earlier this year. (Photo credit: Hayley Ellen Day) | https://www.cityrealty.com/nyc/west-village/107-bank-street/500
However, a valid choice has been made to preserve the fabric of these historic neighborhoods, where replacing rows of townhouses with huge towers would be both politically impossible and, in many cases civically damaging. Offsetting those housing stock losses in Manhattan are the Far West Side and the Financial District, where a net gain of 18,161 apartments has been filed since 2021.
Near Hudson Yards, whole blocks are being built from the ground up, led by HDSN at 418 Eleventh Avenue and West 36th Street, where a single 1,400-plus-unit tower was filed earlier this year. In the Financial District, aging office towers are being gutted and reborn as apartment buildings. More than a dozen Financial District office buildings are now being converted, including one that is adding more than 1,500 apartments inside a single Wall Street tower. It is the clearest sign that the neighborhood’s post-pandemic office glut is being addressed not only by luring workers back, but by turning offices into homes.
Beyond Manhattan, the biggest affordable housing pushes are landing in the western Bronx and Jamaica, Queens, where several hundred-unit-plus income-restricted buildings are already underway. Northwest Brooklyn, including Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and Bed-Stuy, is beginning to run out of room as lots upzoned by past administrations fill with new high-rises. Even so, this year’s permit numbers show some rebound after a post-pandemic lull following the expiration of the 421-a tax abatement program.
Three Notable New Developments
222 East 23rd Street, Gramercy/Kips Bay
Developer: Lalezarian
Design by Stephen B. Jacobs Group
120 residences | 21 stories | 235 feet
Completion est. 2028
Developer: Lalezarian
Design by Stephen B. Jacobs Group
120 residences | 21 stories | 235 feet
Completion est. 2028
A rather ambitious commercial-to-residential conversion and vertical enlargement is planned for 222 East 23rd Street, where a pre-war 158-foot commercial building will be transformed into a 21-story, 235-foot mixed-use residential building. The filing lists low-key rental developer Lalezarian as the owner and Stephen B. Jacobs Group as the design firm. The project is expected to bring 200 apartments across 175,800 square feet of floor area to a highly convenient and desirable block between Second and Third Avenues in the Gramercy-Kips Bay neighborhood.
28 West 37th Street, Midtown West
Developed by Sioni Group
Design by C3D Architecture
95 residences | 32 stories | 418 feet
Developed by Sioni Group
Design by C3D Architecture
95 residences | 32 stories | 418 feet
Drawing for 28 West 37th Street planned in Midtown's Garment District (via NYC DOB)
A new 32-story mixed-use residential tower is planned for 28 West 37th Street in the Garment District, where Sioni Group has secured a $48 million construction loan for the project. Designed by Damir Sehic's C3D Architecture, the building is a follow up to the team's Casoni condo underway nearby at the corner of 37th Street and Sixth Avenue. This tower however, will rise midblock from a compact interior and accommodate just 95 apartments, roughly 85,900 square feet, within its lithe profile.
The filing shows the project is using Mandatory Inclusionary Housing and takes advantage of the new Midtown South rezoning, which helps explain its unusually high density on a small lot, with a total FAR of nearly 17.8. While it is not a skyline-changing tower, upper floor apartments will have front-and-center views of the Empire State Building to the south and Bryant Park to the north.
The filing shows the project is using Mandatory Inclusionary Housing and takes advantage of the new Midtown South rezoning, which helps explain its unusually high density on a small lot, with a total FAR of nearly 17.8. While it is not a skyline-changing tower, upper floor apartments will have front-and-center views of the Empire State Building to the south and Bryant Park to the north.
Sioni Group's nearby hybrid rental and condo tower Casoni
Casoni in spring 2026
View down West 37th Street in the Garment District
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VERA, Long Island City
23-07 43rd Avenue
Developed by United Construction & Development Group
Design by Handel Architects
Over 500 condos | 39 stories
Completion 2028
23-07 43rd Avenue
Developed by United Construction & Development Group
Design by Handel Architects
Over 500 condos | 39 stories
Completion 2028
Vera in Long Island City (Credit: Handel Architects)
A new tower called VERA will be among the next large condo offerings coming to the Court Square area of Long Island City. Developed by Chris Xu’s United Construction & Development Group and designed by Handel Architects, the 39-story, 447-foot high-rise builds upon the developer’s Skyline Tower legacy while pushing Court Square's thickening skyline farther to the north and west.
Planned as the first of two buildings on the site, VERA is planned to bring more than 500 condo residences, with a second building to follow containing nearly 100 affordable apartments. The exterior design is glassy and prosaic, like many new Long Island City builds, but its location at the western edge of Court Square cluster will give its residents with west-facing units spectacular views of Manhattan and the East River bridges. A June press release from the architects says excavation and foundation work have begun and are expected to continue through late winter, with podium construction planned to start in spring 2027. The site is near both the Court Square and Queensboro Plaza transit hubs.
Planned as the first of two buildings on the site, VERA is planned to bring more than 500 condo residences, with a second building to follow containing nearly 100 affordable apartments. The exterior design is glassy and prosaic, like many new Long Island City builds, but its location at the western edge of Court Square cluster will give its residents with west-facing units spectacular views of Manhattan and the East River bridges. A June press release from the architects says excavation and foundation work have begun and are expected to continue through late winter, with podium construction planned to start in spring 2027. The site is near both the Court Square and Queensboro Plaza transit hubs.
The site of Vera from the elevated 7 line that passes along the western side of the site (Spring 2026)
Vera groundbreaking (Handel Architects)
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