Silverstein Properties announced that it will expand its collaboration with Metro Loft Developers – the city’s most prolific office to residential developer – to develop more than 2,000 apartments, including more than 500 permanently affordable homes, through conversions, should The Avenir bid be awarded a casino license.
“We are grateful to our local elected officials and Community Board leaders for prioritizing neighborhood housing in this process,” said Tal Kerret, President of Silverstein Properties. “Amid a citywide housing shortage, these conversions will create new homes for over 2,000 families.”
Over the past 30 years, Metro Loft has pioneered residential conversions in Manhattan, earning a reputation as the leading conversion developer with more than six million square feet of results. Most notably, Silverstein Properties recently partnered with Metro Loft to convert 55 Broad Street – a former Goldman Sachs headquarters – to 571 apartments in 2024, one of the most high-profile office to residential conversions in New York City. Other notable Metro Loft office to residential conversions include the former Pfizer headquarters at 219 – 235 East 42nd Street and 180 Water Street.
Silverstein Properties is expanding its successful collaboration with Metro Loft in direct response to community feedback about priorities for the area. In 2022, Community Board 4 issued a report calling for more opportunities to create housing in the area. In its recent feedback to The Avenir team, Community Board 4 called on The Avenir project to create mixed-income housing in the area.
Silverstein Properties has longstanding roots in The Avenir’s immediate area, as well as extensive experience developing affordable housing in New York City, including in the Hell’s Kitchen / Hudson Yards neighborhood. In 1984, Larry Silverstein purchased the full square block between West 42nd and West 41st Streets and 11th and 12th Avenues in anticipation that the commercial redevelopment of Times Square would ignite the need for rental housing nearby.
Silverstein Properties was one of the first companies to spur residential development in the neighborhood when it opened River Place, a 921-apartment tower, in 2001, and Silver Towers, a 1,359-apartment residential building in two 60-story towers, in 2010. These buildings – directly across the street from the proposed development – include 549 affordable homes, including 230 apartments that the company recently converted to affordable housing in River Place.
Led by Founder and Chairman Larry Silverstein, Silverstein Properties is widely known for its civic leadership following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, when the company worked with dozens of elected officials and public agencies to rebuild the World Trade Center site and revitalize Lower Manhattan. The company is now poised to assist in the City and the State’s economic recovery through a project that will create thousands of jobs, generate billions of dollars in direct and indirect economic activity for the State and the City as well as funding for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
The expanded housing partnership follows a wave of recent news about The Avenir including a hospitality partnership with Hyatt and the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council and a food, beverage and workforce partnership with Union Square Hospitality Group, STARR Restaurants and a host of chefs from the immediate project area.
The Avenir’s project site is fully owned and controlled by Silverstein Properties and is shovel-ready upon approval. The site is also free of complex logistical hurdles, such as land-use approvals and the need for residential or commercial displacement.
