Baisley Pond Park Residence

Organization Name: Slate Property Group / RiseBoro

Project Title: Baisley Pond Park Residence

Project Location: South Jamaica, Queens, NY 11436

Project Description:
Baisley Pond Park Residence is the conversion of the JFK Hilton, a 350+key hotel into 318 units of permanent supportive and affordable housing. There will be mix of studios, one and two bedroom units for formerly homeless tenants leaving shelter, as well as households up to 40% and 50% of AMI. Baisley’s financing was a unique model replicable for future affordable housing developments in a resource capped environment. Baisley was one of the first developments to use NYS HONDA funds allocated for the conversion of hotel and commercial facilities post-Covid, utilized an HRA “Master Lease” structure, 501c3 bonds, and did not require any volume cap or low-income housing tax credits, which are limited public resources. The development was also able to use the existing building structure of the hotel, and significantly reduce the time it would take to bring affordable housing units online. There were no changes to structural walls, but the team reconfigured existing hotel rooms and suites to develop a mix of units, upgraded each apartment by adding kitchens, upgraded life safety and major buildings systems, including electrifying the entire building to produce significant energy savings over time.

Community Impact:
The team took advantage of the ample footprint of the existing hotel, which allowed for a significant amount of community and supportive space. Resident amenities include a 2,400 square foot indoor healing garden, ample community spaces & resident lounge, a community event room, gym, yoga room, computer lab, laundry facilities, and around-the-clock security. There is also a 5,000 SF social services suite where onsite case management and care planning will be provided, so tenants can develop independent life skills, health and wellness, with a robust staffing plan of tenant to service staff ratio of no more than 25:1 case managers. Employment linkages will also provided to tenants including linkages to JFK Airport. No space is going unused, including the hotel’s former dining room and commercial kitchen which will be transformed into a 7,000 square foot space where RiseBoro will operate their Home Delivered Meals program, which currently provides nutritious meals and friendly check-in to approx. 3,000 homebound seniors.

Organization Description:
Slate Property Group is an owner, operator, developer and lender, primarily focused on multifamily in the New York metropolitan area. Over the last decade, Slate has invested in excess of $6.5 billion across equity and debt, with a current portfolio of 50+ investments. RiseBoro Community Partnership is a community development non-profit that has been operating in all five boroughs of New York City since 1973. RiseBoro uses a unique and holistic model to revitalize communities, with programs in housing, senior care, education, health and empowerment.

Team Members:

Lenders: NYC HPD, NYC HDC, NYS HCR, JPMorgan Chase Bank, MSquared
Lead Architect: Aufgang Architects
Skyline Engineering, Studio Parallel, OSD Landscape Architect, KOW Building Consultants