Most of us measure a big apartment job in the hundreds of units. The plan for 100 Gold Street in Lower Manhattan talks about as many as 4,000.
As Samantha Maldonado reported for The City Reporter, the city's Economic Development Corporation is teaming up with developer GFP Real Estate to tear down the Brutalist-style city office building at 100 Gold St., right next to the Brooklyn Bridge, and replace it with housing on a scale the city hasn't seen.
Two towers, one big number
The plan calls for two towers joined at a podium base. One would be about 115 stories and the other about 78, rising as high as 1,250 feet and 860 feet. For comparison, the Empire State Building is 1,250 feet from ground to roof. Almost half of the site is planned as open space.
The current building houses the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, other agencies and a senior center. The EDC said it would have needed costly repairs, and that proceeds from the sale would pay to relocate city workers.
The 4,000 apartments would dwarf what's in other big buildings. The former office building at 25 Water Street has 1,320. Stephen Smith, executive director of the Center for Building in North America, said 100 Gold could have the highest unit count of any building in the country, though over two towers it wouldn't "feel like a single building."
"It is pretty big for New York City! Arguably the biggest in a holistic sense," Smith wrote in an email. "But in my opinion, appropriately big for the site and the housing crisis this city is in."
How it got this big
The push to redevelop 100 Gold began under Mayor Eric Adams, whose administration picked GFP out of several firms. Mayor Zohran Mamdani's administration said it wanted to maximize housing on the site as part of a plan to build 200,000 affordable apartments by 2036.
"A crisis demands a bold response," Diana Switaj, an EDC vice president, said at an Oct. 5 community board meeting.
Board member Patrick Kennell asked whether it was "density on steroids." Brian Steinwurtzel, CEO and principal of GFP Development, answered that plenty of buildings in the district are already built to that density. "They just happen to be built as office buildings primarily," he said.
When Councilmember Christopher Marte backed redeveloping 100 Gold in 2025, only about 1,200 apartments were envisioned there. "The first proposal is never the final," Marte said.
The money and the rules
The project is expected to pay its own way without public subsidies. Instead, the developers plan to use the 485-x tax abatement program, which for a building this size requires a quarter of the apartments to be rent-stabilized and permanently affordable to households making about $102,000 for a family of four or $71,280 for an individual.
The City Reporter noted that 485-x has spurred a wave of buildings with 99 apartments or fewer, built to avoid wage requirements that kick in on bigger projects. So far, just four buildings that registered for the program, less than 1%, will have more than 100 apartments. "We will be one of the first and hopefully not only 485-x projects that exceeds 99 units," Steinwurtzel said.
The development team is also asking to let future developers on certain Lower Manhattan sites build apartment buildings just as dense, if they apply for land use changes. The project itself is expected to bring about 8,080 residents, raising the Financial District's population by about 10%.
A long runway
The project still has to go through the city's lengthy environmental review, which the team expects to start in March. If it's approved, the building would come down in 2030 after city workers move out, and the new development is slated for completion by 2037.
Why it matters for Contractors
A job like this would keep demolition, foundation, concrete, curtain wall, elevator and MEP contractors busy for years, plus the finish trades fitting out thousands of apartments. Watch the 485-x angle, too. The project is well above 99 units, where the program's wage requirements kick in, and very few projects have crossed that line so far. If 100 Gold goes forward, it'll be one of the first big tests of how those rules work on a jobsite.
The timeline is long and the numbers could still change. But if the request to allow similar density on other Lower Manhattan sites holds up, 100 Gold may not be the last job of its kind downtown.