Rialto West

Organization Name: S9 Architecture

Project Title: Rialto West

Project Location: Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan

Project Description:
Rialto West is a 100% permanent affordable housing building in Hell’s Kitchen designed by S9 Architecture. The project contains 158 permanently affordable rental units for formerly unhoused and low- to middle-income households with over 5,000 square feet of community space. The project site straddles an Amtrak right-of-way platform and was identified by the City’s Western Rail Yard plan to be developed as designated affordable housing. Developed in partnership with Douglaston Development and Actors Fund Housing Development Corporation, the eight-story building brings new housing to Hell’s Kitchen that specially addresses the needs of its artistic and performing arts community. The façade is inspired by the surrounding loft-style industrial architecture and uses a mix of exposed brick, metal cladding, and expansive glass windows, chosen to bring maximum daylight into the building. Adjacent to the building is a new public green space, developed and managed through a partnership with NYC Parks.

Community Impact:
Rialto West is a model for building new residential development within a longstanding community. The project heals a long-blighted parcel of Hell’s Kitchen with urgently needed new housing that reflects and supports the unique identity of the neighborhood.

The building’s 158 permanently affordable apartments will help ease New York’s housing crisis by providing stable, high-quality homes for renters with the greatest need. The building also adds a significant benefit to the arts and culture community; IndieSpace, a nonprofit that celebrates and supports equitable, independent theater, will manage new affordable rehearsal space at the ground floor.

The project also transforms a long-vacant lot into a public plaza, managed by NYC Parks. Named for playwright and LGBTQ activist Lorraine Hansbery, the plaza will bring much-needed greenspace, and a public comfort station, to the dense urban area. S9’s thoughtful architectural design reinforces and strengthens the neighborhood’s identity and responds to the adjacent open space, creating a harmonious relationship between the building and its context.

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:

Douglaston Development
Actors Fund Housing Development Corporation
NYC Parks
IndieSpace