REVIVE: FACADE FINISHES AT COLUMBIA HOUSING

The 12-story residential building built by Columbia University on Broadway at the corner of 148th Street is just finishing up its facade work. There has been scaffolding out front for the past couple of years and now a somewhat generic tower is being revealed as the construction equipment goes down.  Apparently these will be affordable co-op units set aside for those residents that will be displaced in Manhattanville when the new Columbia campus is complete.  One Bespoke reader broke down the situation as below in our past post:

This building is going to be for people that were due to participate in the Tenant Interim Lease apartment purchase program had Columbia not moved into the area. This program allowed renters to buy their apartments from the city (the city took ownership in these buildings due to tax liens which often needed a lot of repairs. Because Columbia wanted these properties for their campus expansion- they offered to relocate these residents into a new building at the University's expense. In essence, these people will be Co-op owners in a newly constructed building- though the incomes required to buy will be restricted.

Read more about this development in our original story from 2012: LINK