Developers File Plans For 30-Story Tower In Inwood

INWOOD, NY — A real estate firm that spent more than six figures lobbying the city to rezone Inwood for greater density has filed plans to build a 30-story tower in the neighborhood. The new development is one of the first new high-rises planned in Inwood after the City Council voted to rezone the neighborhood in early August.

MADD Equities' development will rise 295-feet-tall on Ninth Avenue between West 207th and 208th streets, according to plans filed with the city Department of Buildings. The building will contain ground-floor retail spaces and 614 apartment units, according to building plans.

Most of the development will be residential. With 516,080 square feet of buildable space zoned for residential use, the average apartment in the building will be about 840 square feet large. Planned residential amenities include bicycle storage, laundry facilities, indoor and outdoor recreation spaces and an accessible rooftop area.

Four commercial spaces will occupy 65,834 square feet on the building's ground floor, according to development plans.

The planned development is located in a special zoning district called the "Sherman Creek," which was upzoned for higher-density, mixed-use buildings in the city's controversial Inwood rezoning plan. Many opponents of the plan worried that this specific zoning district would bring a deluge of high-rise development to Inwood, which is often described as one of Manhattan's last affordable neighborhoods.

The building site is currently occupied by a large parking lot.

MADD equities spent more than $100,000 in 2017 and 2018 to lobby the city Economic Development Corp. — which designed and proposed the rezoning — and Inwood's local representative Ydanis Rodriguez in an effort to get the plan passed, the Wall Street Journal first reported.

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