Former Bayview Correctional Facility Transformation
By Brian J Pape, AIA
Construction is officially underway to transform the former Bayview Correctional Facility at 550 West 20th Street into the Chelsea Beacon, a new mixed use building. COOKFOX Architects’ design includes housing, an interior courtyard and a 9,300-square-foot community facility with youth-oriented programming.
According to NY Sen. Erik Bottcher, the project will create up to 131 permanently affordable rental homes, including at least 79 supportive housing units, a 15-bed transitional residence and space for youth recreation, education, and other community services.
The ca. 1931 building was built in the Art Deco style with ornamental flourishes undimmed by time. Strong gestures of vertical brick pilasters topped by glazed art figures follow the rhythms of arched openings at the lower levels. The sun reflects brightly off the golden glazes. A nautical theme pervades all the decorative elements.
The COOKFOX website states that Chelsea Beacon will transform an Art Deco building into much-needed housing in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood through adaptive reuse and a multi-story expansion. The design recovers the site’s history as a place of refuge and brings healthy, high-performance homes to New York’s most vulnerable neighbors.
Chelsea Beacon will preserve and restore the building’s historic street-facing façades and structure while entirely reimagining its interiors into a mix of studio, one-and two-bedroom apartments. The new extension (showing seven floors in current renderings) will be set back from the existing façade, creating a contextually resonant overbuild above the current structure. A planted terrace on the ninth floor will function as an accessible outdoor space for the residents. The design will restore and repurpose a chapel on the second floor as a residential library, as well as relocate a series of nautical mosaic murals from the former indoor swimming pool to be featured in the new residential lobby.
Chelsea Beacon is developed by Camber Property Group and Osborne Association in partnership with Empire State Development. Osborne will operate the supportive housing while Urban Pathways will operate the short-term transitional residence program.
Originally designed by Shreve, Lamb, and Harmon, the same architecture firm behind the Empire State Building, the structure first opened in 1931 as the Seaman’s House YMCA and served as a dorm-style residence for sailors and merchant mariners who were in New York on shore leave. It later functioned as a drug rehabilitation center and site of incarceration in the 1970s. During these years, New York State converted the building into a women’s prison called the Bayview Correctional Facility.
Elsewhere in the Village, also in the 1970s, the infamous Women’s House of Detention was vacated and demolished, nearly taking the Jefferson Market Courthouse with it, but for community preservationists’ efforts. So it seems the House of D functions were transferred to the Bayview.
The nine-story structure has sat vacant following floodwater damage to the boilers and electrical systems from Hurricane Sandy in October 2012. Since then, only minor maintenance has been done by the state, with sidewalk scaffolding covering the lower levels. Meanwhile, many high-end buildings have been completed nearby, and construction has topped out on 550 West 21st Street, a 23-story, 250-foot-tall residential building, which will span up to 172,000 square feet and yield 83 condominiums.
Chelsea Beacon was formerly called Liberty Landing, which followed several other failed attempts to redevelop this facility. This site is directly across from Chelsea Piers Recreation Center and just two blocks from shops, buses and services on 23rd Street.
