A vacant lot on White Plains Road in Soundview could soon become a 21-story apartment tower with 606 units, after a Brooklyn-based developer filed plans with the city to rezone the property and build up. The application, submitted August 12 by Heights Advisors through its entity 1945 WP LLC, seeks to convert the site at 945 White Plains Road from R6/C2-2 to R8/C2-4 zoning, clearing the way for a 214-foot mixed-use building where a strip mall once stood.
The filing, first detailed by Connect CRE, calls for 515,063 square feet of new construction, with 503,095 square feet devoted to residential use and roughly 152 permanently income-restricted apartments among the 606 total units. Another 11,968 square feet would be reserved for ground-floor commercial space, according to a breakdown reported by Commercial Observer. The site itself has sat empty since around 2022, when the low-rise retail building that once housed Modell's Sporting Goods and GameStop was demolished, leaving a 74,501-square-foot midblock parcel on Block 3671, per the same outlet's reporting.
A Long-Term Lease Behind the Project
Heights Advisors does not own the land outright. The firm holds a 99-year ground lease on the parcel through 1945 WP LLC, with the underlying property still belonging to Acre Associates LLC, a company controlled by the Civitano family, Commercial Observer reports. That family originally leased the site to Modell's Sporting Goods under a 49-year agreement dating back to 1994, a structure that helps explain why a single retail parcel has now become the target of one of Soundview's larger proposed residential developments.
Heights Advisors is led by President Rachel Foster, who also surfaced this month as an investor in a separate Brooklyn deal, the $42.25 million sale of a Bay Ridge convent covered by Hoodline in its Bay Ridge convent sale report. The Soundview filing, however, stands as its own project, positioned by the developer as a large multifamily development anchored by a significant affordable housing component, according to Connect CRE.
How the Affordability Math Could Work
The exact income breakdown of the 606 units remains an open question, since Heights Advisors is reportedly seeking financing through the city's New Construction Finance Program, which is geared toward developments that are 100% affordable, Connect CRE notes. Under Department of Housing Preservation and Development guidelines for that program, subsidy recipients must set aside between 60% and 100% of units for households earning up to 80% Area Median Income, a threshold set at $122,160 for a three-person household this year.
Separately, the city's Mandatory Inclusionary Housing rules that govern rezonings like this one give developers a choice: Option 1 requires 25% of residential space reserved for households averaging 60% AMI, while Option 2 requires a 30% set-aside at an 80% AMI average, according to the NYC Department of City Planning. It is not yet clear which option, or combination of subsidy programs, Heights Advisors will ultimately pursue for the Soundview site.
Parking Fight Looms as Review Begins
Alongside the rezoning request, the developer is asking the City Planning Commission for a special permit under Zoning Resolution Section 74-52 to waive the statutory off-street parking requirements for the building's residential units. That request is likely to become a flashpoint as the project moves through New York City's Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, which requires advisory review from Bronx Community Board 9 and the Bronx Borough President before the City Planning Commission and City Council cast binding votes.
The stakes are real for a neighborhood where more than 48% of households are already rent-burdened, spending well over 30% of their gross income on rent and utilities, according to city planning data. Soundview has seen a string of housing struggles in recent months, from Jamie Towers securing a state-funded lifeline for capital repairs, covered by Hoodline in June, to a Soundview high-rise power outage that boiled over that same month, and a February state audit that found mold and mismanagement at Evergreen Gardens, another Mitchell-Lama complex in the area.
Whether 945 White Plains Road ultimately delivers deeply affordable housing or a more market-rate-leaning mix will depend on decisions still to come during the review process, which typically runs about seven months from filing. For now, the proposal adds one more large residential project to a stretch of Soundview already seeing new construction activity, expanding, if approved, the borough's supply of income-restricted apartments in a district where the need is well documented.
