A car rental center on W43rd Street is set to be replaced with a 17-story residential tower housing 86 units, according to plans submitted to the Department of Buildings (DOB) by Brooklyn-based City Builders NYC earlier this month.
A car rental center at 515 W43rd Street has been sold with plans filed for a 17-story residential building to take its place. Photo: Catie Savage
The 85-year-old garage, located between 10th and 11th Avenues, is currently occupied by Avis car rental. Demolition permits have not yet been filed, but the building’s owner has agreed to sell the three-story structure for $26 million, according to Crain’s New York Business.
While it’s unclear if the units will be condos or apartments, proposed amenities point to a high-end development — the plans include a spa, bike storage, lounge, game room and a co-working space on the ground and cellar floors and an outdoor recreation area on the roof.
The new tower would rise alongside Charlie West, a 16-story luxury condominium complex, and is just down the block from the 12-story Oskar luxury apartments.
It’s not the only Hell’s Kitchen parking structure set to be converted into housing. Earlier this year, owners of a six-story garage at 304 W49th Street submitted plans to construct a 20-story residential building in its place.
The W49th Street garage was one of nine in Hell’s Kitchen deemed “unsafe” by the DOB during a citywide wave of inspections triggered by the 2023 partial collapse of a lower Manhattan parking structure, which killed one and injured five.
In the aftermath of those inspections, many garage owners have opted to sell to housing developers. One crumbling garage on W55th Street — which owed the DOB $6,000 for failing to address safety hazards identified in a 2023 citation — abruptly closed on October 31, though it is unclear what the future plans are at this time.
Meanwhile, parking lots across Manhattan are recommended as sites for housing development in a new report by the Office of the Borough President and Comptroller-elect Mark Levine. Parking lots account for many of the 34 underutilized properties identified in the report.
In November, a surface parking lot at 10th Avenue and W36th Street went up for sale for more than $100 million after developers scrapped plans for a 40-story condominium tower.
A parking garage on W55th Street recently closed after being deemed “unsafe” and a surface parking lot on 10th Avenue is being marketed as a development site. Photos: Brennan LaBrie and Catie Savage
“Space is precious, we have a housing crisis and we shouldn’t be using precious space in Manhattan for surface parking lots,” he said in an interview with Gothamist.