Welcome Home: Local Residents Become Harlem Co-op Owners in Building Constructed by Columbia

Twenty-six families that had previously resided in two New York City Housing Preservation and Development (HPD)-owned buildings in Manhattanville are now co-op shareholders in a newly constructed 42-unit building in Hamilton Heights.  

As part of Columbia’s commitment to providing equal or better affordable housing for tenants that lived in two buildings within the Manhattanville campus expansion area that were part of the city's Tenant Interim Lease Program (TIL), the University constructed a 12-story building at Broadway and West 148th Street and offered residents the opportunity to purchase the new cooperative units at the same price they would have under the TIL program.  

The Hamilton Heights building was built to Enterprise Green Communities guidelines, in support of both community health and the University’s Sustainability Plan. All units in the building have roof deck access, bicycle storage, meeting space, and laundry areas. The landscaped roof terraces provide residents with panoramic views of the Hudson River, the Manhattan skyline, and the George Washington Bridge. 

Nineteen of the families moved into their apartments in 2016 and received the issuance of shares for their co-operative apartments in April 2018. The additional seven families relocated in December 2018, and in November 2022 closed on their apartments, officially becoming homeowners. The agreement Columbia helped negotiate allowed them to become homeowners sooner than they otherwise would have. 

In addition to the 26 families who relocated from within the Manhattanville campus expansion area, Columbia built an additional 15 units at the building made available as affordable housing. Some of the affordable units have already been sold via affordable housing lottery, and the remaining unsold affordable units will be advertised for sale through a new housing lottery that will kick off in early 2023. 

In addition to the residential spaces, the building houses new space for the Meeting with God Pentecostal Church, which relocated into the ground floor earlier this year, and commercial retail space where a Japanese/ramen restaurant, Jin Ramen, also opened this year.