Bailey-Holt House To Be Replaced With a 16-Story Tower

By Brian J Pape, AIA, LEED-AP

THIS VIEW looking east from the Hudson River Park at Christopher Street, shows The Bailey-Holt House in white at center, with the Keller Hotel to its right. These represent two of the historic sailor hotels that served the waterfront industry of years past. The Bailey-Holt House is being replaced by a 16-story residential tower that will dwarf neighboring buildings. Photo credit: Brian J. Pape, AIA.

Jan (BHH) director Andrew Coamey is a longtime manager at the massive New York City HIV nonprofit Housing Works which merged with BHH early in 2019. The residents were told in 2020 that Housing Works planned to tear the building down, find temporary housing for all BHH residents, rebuild BHH at twice the height with kitchen-equipped units, and allow any previous tenants to come back to the new building.

Housing Works CEO Charles King was quoted by Tim Murphy in The Body 2020 newsletter, saying that the building was structurally damaged during 2012 Superstorm Sandy. Despite repairs and the installation of an expensive deployable flood barrier around the perimeter, it would be impossible to make the existing structure resilient enough for a future storm of Sandy’s magnitude.

The HRA [the city housing agency] had dramatically cut the BHH allotment, so the facility had to be heavily subsidized by independent funds. Since the SRO [single-room occupancy] rooms don’t have cooking facilities, this is the only supportive housing program that had to provide meals. King said it is no longer legal to build supportive housing for a single population like people living with HIV.

Now, as reported by Vanessa Londono for the December 11 YIMBY online, Housing Works has filed for a building permit for Bailey-Holt House, 180 Christopher Street. It would demolish the existing six-story building for a 16-story residential tower at the corner of West Street. The proposed 181-foot-tall development will yield 43,125 square feet of residential space, including 75 residences (30 more than the existing facility) and ancillary spaces, averaging units of 575 square feet, most likely supportive housing rentals for homeless and/or very low-income New Yorkers. This site is not in a historic district. 

Bailey-Holt House was established in 1986 by transforming one of the neighborhood’s rooming houses that served the waterfront industry (it also once housed a gay bar and disco). With the support of the Koch and Cuomo administrations, the AIDS Resource Center opened Bailey-Holt House as the nation’s first congregate residence for people living with AIDS. BHH was named in honor of a founder, Reverend Mead Miner Bailey, and Broadway theater producer and director Fritz Holt. 

This program became a shining example of helping people with AIDS maintain their health and led to supportive housing becoming a demand of AIDS activists. Today, Bailey-Holt House operates housing for nearly 700 men, women, and children across New York City.  BHH has been a good neighbor, with few complaints or police activity regarding the tenants, and it provides a vital city service. No announcement was made of where residents will be relocated.

Douglass Alligood of Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) of Denmark and New York is listed as the architect of record. BIG’s other local designs have been the residential One High Line towers at 16th and West streets, and the Hudson Yards office tower, The Spiral. Further north, The Via at West and 57th streets, is an unusual pyramid-shaped residential tower completed several years ago. Known for their innovative designs, BIG has gained a world-wide reputation in a surprisingly short span of years. Although no images were yet published on the BIG website, we anticipate this won’t be just another “cookie-cutter” apartment tower. No estimated start or completion dates have been determined yet, but the foundation difficulties in this area can be daunting. The excavation, dewatering and pier drilling took well over a year, next door at 144 Barrow Street, for a six-story building. The foundation work at Jane and West streets has seen many months of multiple pier drilling and they still seem far from pouring slabs. So, this could be years of intense construction activity.

Brian J. Pape is a citizen architect in private practice, serving on the Manhattan District 2 Community Board Executive Committee, the Landmarks Committee, the State Liquor Authority Committee, and Street Activities & Resiliency Committee, (speaking personally, and not in an official capacity).  He is a LEED-AP “Green” certified architect, co-chair of the American Institute of Architects NY Design for Aging Committee, member of its Historic Buildings, Housing, and PassiveHaus Committees.  He is appointed to the Waterfront Code Committee (2023) for NYC Building Codes, and is a journalist specializing in architecture and urban subjects.