Bronx Point

Organization Name: S9 Architecture

Project Title: Bronx Point

Project Location: South Bronx, Bronx

Project Description:
Bronx Point is a 530,000-square-foot mixed-use development that brings vibrant cultural, commercial, retail, and community facilities, permanent affordable housing, and dynamic open space to the Harlem River waterfront in the South Bronx. The project includes 542 permanently affordable housing units, primarily for families earning 30% to 120% AMI and formerly unhoused New Yorkers. Resident amenities include an outdoor terrace, on-site laundry, a children’s room, lounge, bike storage, and fitness center. Bronx Point will also be the first home of the Universal Hip Hop Museum. The development includes additional community spaces and is surrounded by a 13,000-square-foot landscaped public esplanade. Designed by S9 Architecture, the building maximizes river and park views through strategic massing and large outdoor terraces. Its façade mimics the dynamic neighborhood context in rhythmic shifts, setbacks, and framed cutouts. Co-developed by L+M Development Partners and Type A Projects, Bronx Point won the 2020 Award for Excellence in Design by the NYC Public Design Commission, the 2024 MASterworks Award for Best New Urban Amenity, and a ULI Terwilliger Center Award for Attainable Housing.

Community Impact:
Bronx Point was designed as more than a single building – it is an extension of the neighborhood, drawing engagement to a vibrant new public realm and culturally resonant site. In addition to delivering urgently needed affordable housing, the project creates a dynamic new community destination, rooted in local culture and generating it. Anchored by the Hip Hop Museum, Bronx Point celebrates the borough’s cultural legacy while establishing a major new neighborhood hub.

The building responses directly to its site, rooting it within its community. It’s massing maximizes views, reduces bulk to fit neighborhood scale, and steps down to meet the surrounding public space, creating a cohesion between built and natural contexts. The façade design and materials ground the building in its context, reflecting motion and rhythm through dynamic shifts of brick, stone, metal, and concrete.

The public esplanade, shaped through deep partnership and engagement with local community, is a significant public improvement. It features a playground, adult fitness areas, barbecues, ample seating, and a performance space, reinforcing the site’s connection to the arts and providing inclusive spaces for everyday life.

Organization Description:
S9 Architecture is a New York City-based firm dedicated to designing spaces, buildings, and neighborhoods that respectfully integrate and enhance communities and cities. S9's designs are specific to their micro-geographies and designed to enhance them. Through site analyses, historical and physical investigations, and studies of local communities and cultures, we design projects that are authentic, additive, and transformative while also fitting into the local urban context.

Team Members:

L+M Development Partners
Type A Projects
Universal Hip Hop Museum