In 1997, Two Bridges Tower completed the official redevelopment of the Two Bridges Urban Renewal Area located between the Williamsburg and Manhattan Bridges on South Street in Manhattan.  Settlement Housing Fund sponsored and developed six residential sites and a Pathmark, replacing a blighted commercial area.  We worked with the Two Bridges Neighborhood Council on all seven sites, retaining joint ownership of Two Bridges Towers, which integrates formerly homeless and working families of low- to moderate-income.  A neighborhood settlement house runs programs in the nonresidential space, and a small shopping plaza abuts the residential complex.  The result is an ethnically and economically integrated neighborhood, with well maintained buildings, commercial and community activities, and 1,350 good, safe, affordable homes.

The last site consisted of a twenty-one story tower with a row of small stores, developed with Verizon Capital as the limited partner. In December, 2008 Verizon donated the row of small stores to a new nonprofit 501 (c) (3) organization controlled by Settlement Housing Fund and Two Bridges.  Settlement Housing Fund is now working on the pre-development of 70-77 units of new affordable housing on this site, which will be allocated for middle income families, a group that usually is ignored and has been overlooked in the design of many housing programs.

Our development plan is innovative and appropriately suited to the uncertainty of the world today, and could be a model for other organizations that own sites with extra zoning capacity.  We will take the design through the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP).  We will build a 13 story building that we would own outright.   We would either receive the units debt free as part of an inclusionary zoning agreement, or we would develop the units with one of HPD’s rental programs.

Jodi Adamson

Property Manager

Two Bridges Tower

82 Rutgers Slip

New York, NY  10002

212.267.3296