The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) has designated a development team for The Aurea, a mixed-use affordable housing development at 324 East 5th Street in Manhattan’s East Village. Designed by SLCE Architects and developed by a partnership of Spatial Equity, Housing Works, the Cooper Square Committee, and the This Land Is Ours Community Land Trust, the project will yield approximately 131 deeply affordable homes, with 30 percent of the units set aside for formerly homeless New Yorkers. The property is located between First and Second Avenues.
Rendering of 324 East 5th Street. Designed by SLCE Architects.
The project will also include a senior adult daycare center, community space, and replacement parking facilities for the NYPD, which currently uses the approximately 11,500-square-foot site as a parking lot. The building is designed to meet Passive House Institute US standards with all-electric systems, and will feature landscaped terraces and passive green roofs across multiple roof levels.
Rendering of 324 East 5th Street. Designed by SLCE Architects.
The senior adult daycare center will be split between the ground floor and cellar, with the ground-floor space serving as a reception area and public-facing multi-purpose room and the cellar housing the main programmed space. The replacement NYPD parking will sit on the east side of the building fronting East 5th Street, screened by the façade to reduce its visibility and maintain a pedestrian-friendly streetscape.
The designation is the first award of City-owned land under the Mamdani administration and includes a community land trust as a development partner, a structure intended to ensure long-term affordability and tenant oversight. The request for proposals was shaped by a community engagement process that included multilingual outreach, tabling at the Ottendorfer and Tompkins Square Libraries, and a public workshop, with nearly 400 residents submitting feedback through a site questionnaire and visioning sessions. Housing Works will operate the senior center and provide on-site supportive services for residents.
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So they are keeping the east part of the at-grade parking lot? Why didn’t they just build over the parking too?