Governor Kathy Hochul has unveiled a selected proposal to redevelop 621 West 45th Street, a State-owned parcel in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan currently used as the surface parking lot for the Intrepid Museum, home of the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid. The proposal — from a development team led by The Gotham Organization, Fisher Brothers, and MURAL Real Estate Group — would transform one of the largest undeveloped parcels on Manhattan’s far West Side into 1,127 new homes, expand the Intrepid Museum’s public campus and strengthens the neighborhood’s existing waterfront assets with new publicly accessible open space.
[Photo above: Rendering of the new project.]
“The far West Side of Manhattan has a storied history as a vibrant, inclusive community, and this proposal will carry that legacy forward by building for a more affordable future,” Governor Hochul said. “By transforming a State-owned parking lot into more than 1,100 new homes — with hundreds of permanently affordable units and homeownership opportunities — we are taking direct aim at the housing shortage while strengthening one of New York’s great cultural institutions. This is what’s possible when we put State land to work for the people of New York.”
The development will rise on the approximately 50,584-square-foot site along the east blockfront of Twelfth Avenue between West 45th and West 46th Streets that is currently used as a parking lot, directly across from the Intrepid Museum and steps from Hudson River Park.
The proposal calls for two connected towers and a total of 1,127 homes serving a broad range of New Yorkers. 338 of those homes — 30 percent of all units — would be affordable, serving individuals and families earning between 40 and 130 percent of Area Median Income. The proposal also includes a significant share of middle-income housing affordable to teachers, nurses and first responders, along with a for-sale condominium component that includes income-restricted ownership units.
The development would also deliver new neighborhood retail space and replacement parking for the Intrepid Museum, fully phased so that Museum parking remains uninterrupted throughout construction.
Beyond housing, the project would extend the Intrepid Museum’s public presence eastward across the West Side Highway through a new Intrepid Concourse — a roughly 22,000-square-foot community facility for the Museum that includes a new visitor’s center, a STEM education hub and a café. The proposal also creates Intrepid Park, an approximately 9,800-square-foot public open space connected to the Museum’s sky bridge, offering landscaped space for programming, events and Hudson River views for residents and visitors alike.
The development team — which includes MURAL Real Estate Group as a certified MWBE — has committed to robust participation by Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprises and Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Businesses and to local hiring throughout construction and operations. The team has also committed to remediating the site, historically part of a manufactured gas plant, to the highest environmental standards, including by pursuing enrollment in the New York State Brownfield Cleanup Program.
MURAL Real Estate Partners President and CEO Robert Zeigler said, “Great cities are shaped by projects that do more than fill a site — they create opportunity. We’re proud to join Gotham Organization, Fisher Brothers, the Intrepid Museum, and New York State in advancing a vision that brings together housing, culture, and public space in a way that creates lasting value. This project reflects the power of shared partnership — bringing together the public and private sectors around a common purpose to strengthen neighborhoods, expand access and build places that serve New Yorkers for generations.”
Intrepid Museum President Susan Marenoff-Zausner said, “We are thrilled to be a part of such a vital development project for New York City, and appreciative of Governor Hochul’s vision for the neighborhood and belief in the Museum’s mission. We are excited to collaborate with ‘best in class’ firms that exude excellence and share our belief in community. This project enables us to expand our award-winning educational programs that the Intrepid Museum is renowned for and that have been so impactful for the City’s youth.”
