Covenant House — the nonprofit focused on youth homelessness — has just opened up a new headquarters in its first ever purpose-built facility. The new location is at 460 W41st Street, just around the corner from their longtime home at 550 10th Avenue.
The move came about after The Gotham Organization bought the original property from Covenant House for $80 million. As part of the deal, the developer worked with the non-profit to build a new ground-up 80,000 square-foot facility dedicated to fulfilling their mission. Covenant House Board member, Strauss Zelnick and wife, Wendy Belzberg, helped the support campaign for the new facility with a $10 million gift — and the building is called “The Zelnick Belzberg Center for Housing, Health and Achievement”.
“Facilitating Covenant House’s move into its new home is an accomplishment we are incredibly proud of,” said David Picket, president of Gotham Organization. “Working hand-in-hand with such an important social services organization has been a very rewarding experience. This is yet another example of how public-private partnerships can have a real impact on the city and better the services available to our community’s most vulnerable residents.”
The new Covenant House has six floors of residential shelter space, five floors of programming spaces, including workforce development and mental health services, a federally qualified health center, a cafeteria, and 1,500 square feet of outdoor green space. The new site expects to reach 1,900 young people each year.
Now that the facility is complete and open, The Gotham Organization — the developer behind Gotham West Market — is moving forward with plans for a 47-story tower at 550 10th Avenue in the former Covenant House building. They just secured $250 million in financing for the project this week, Crain’s reported. This includes a $212 million construction loan from Wells Fargo and $35 million for the mezzanine from Lionheart Strategic Management.
The mixed-use tower between W40th and W41st will include 453 apartments (316 market rate and 137 affordable) alongside 9,000 square feet of retail space and 27,000 square feet of offices for Covenant House.
Permits for the project were filed in January with Handel Architects as the architect of record. Other details revealed include amenities like a roof deck on the 45th floor, an interior lounge that will double as a coworking space during the day, a fitness center, and a pet spa.
How many more High-rise Buildings are they going to build in this Already Congested Area! Taking away the Sun and Sky and views!!
This is good news for Covenant House. But terrible news for HK residents. A 47 story apartment high rise?!?!?!
Not like it the first one in the area. It is right by the tunnel though and a traffic jam nightmare. Good luck to future tenants with the noise and fumes.