City Limits: ‘We Cracked The Code’: First Hotel-to-Housing Conversion Using State Program To Open in Queens
356 hotel rooms, double-loaded corridors, precast plank and concrete walls, a glass-enclosed pool, sheetrock walls, ribbon glass windows. These were the building blocks of the JFK Hilton Hotel, built in 1987, that operated for 35 years until it closed in 2023.
Architects cut, molded, and reconfigured those pieces to turn that behemoth structure into 318 affordable homes. Hundreds of formerly homeless residents will move in this fall.
The completion of construction earlier this month makes the development, called Baisley Pond Park, the first project to open using the Housing Our Neighbors with Dignity Act (HONDA), a 2021 New York State law that financed the conversion of underutilized office and hotel space for affordable and supportive housing.