Hochul picks Gotham, Fisher, Mural for 1,127 Hell's Kitchen homes
The winning bid on a state-owned Hell's Kitchen parking lot is a template for what clears a New York RFP in 2026.
New York State selected a team of The Gotham Organization, Fisher Brothers and MURAL Real Estate Group to build 1,127 homes on the Intrepid Museum’s surface parking lot in Hell’s Kitchen, and the state intends to override local zoning to make it happen, which is the part every developer chasing public land should read closely.
Why it matters
This is an entitlement story before it is a housing story. The site at 621 West 45th Street is state-owned, and the award runs through Hochul’s Redeveloping Underused Sites as Housing program, launched in 2024, which lets the state sell surplus parcels at fair market value and bypass city zoning. That combination, public land, a state sponsor, and a zoning override, is the fastest path to scale left in Manhattan. A team that would spend years in a city rezoning gets a shortcut.
So read the winning bid as a scorecard. The state did not simply take the highest number. It took a package: 338 of the 1,127 homes affordable, or about 30%, against an RFP floor of 25%; a certified MWBE partner in MURAL; and a civic giveback built for the incumbent institution rather than around it. Teams bidding the next state parcel now know the shape of a winner.
The numbers
The parcel runs roughly 50,584 sq ft. The affordable component covers households at 40% to 130% of area median income, a band deliberately stretched into middle-income territory, and includes income-restricted ownership units, rarer and harder to pencil than rental. Commercial Observer reports 108 of the units would be for-sale condominiums, 28 of them affordable. The Real Deal puts total project cost near $1 billion across 1.3 million sq ft; neither figure appears in the state’s announcement.
For the museum, the plan adds an Intrepid Concourse of about 22,000 sq ft with a visitor’s center, STEM hub and café, plus a roughly 9,800 sq ft Intrepid Park, and replaces the lost parking.
What’s next
The state disclosed no construction timeline, and approvals remain outstanding, including a planned pedestrian bridge. The honest risk: the site sits atop a former manufactured gas plant, so remediation cost and schedule are real and unpriced publicly. More at the New York hub.