This three year community-based planning project culminated with Hell's Kitchen South: Developing Strategies, a guide and tool for local constituents, including the Hell’s Kitchen Neighborhood Association and Manhattan Community Board 4, as they steer future development in their neighborhood for the good of Hell's Kitchen and the larger city. 

impact

After the completion of the project, the Hell’s Kitchen Neighborhood Association conducted an extension of the Development Strategies that responded to the Department of City Planning’s Hudson Yards Master Plan and directly influenced the emphasis on extending subway services, establishing a network of public spaces and accommodating interior medium-density residential uses with peripheral high-density mixed-use development in the rezoning plan of Hell’s Kitchen South that was approved in 2005.

The first phase of the Hudson Park & Boulevard project is scheduled to open in 2014 and will include entrances to the extended 7-line subway and an open space system of large plazas and grassy areas linked by landscaped walking paths between 10th and 11th Avenues stretching from West 33rd to West 36th Street. The second phase will extend the park over entrances to the Lincoln tunnel to 42nd Street and complete the connection from the northern border of Hell’s Kitchen South to the Western Rail Yard Site where a 26-acre master plan including office, retail, residential, cultural and open space development is currently in the implementation phase.

background

Hell’s Kitchen, a 100-year-old residential community in midtown Manhattan, is situated in the midst of one of NYC’s largest transportation hubs for train, bus and commuter rail. At the time of this project close to 30% of its land was vacant, making this area one of the last underdeveloped districts in Manhattan: Chelsea’s residential and commercial development is approaching from the South; adjacent abandoned rail yards represent a possible site for a new sports stadium; and to the West is redeveloped waterfront.

process

In June 1999, the Design Trust partnered with the Hell's Kitchen Neighborhood Association (HKNA), a grass-roots community group, and four principals of Design + Urbanism (D+U) to organize a public planning conference at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. The conference addressed the future of Hell's Kitchen South, one of the last under-developed areas in Manhattan and enabled a dialogue between residents and design and development experts . More than 200 urban planners, local residents, and government officials attended the two-day conference.

After the conference, the principals of D+U were awarded fellowships to continue the research and create design recommendations that would steer beneficial growth and impending development in Hell's Kitchen South. The Fellows invited and led 18 multidisciplinary research and design teams to develop program issues raised at the conference and create a variety of urban design ideas. Their design and planning schemes were exhibited at the Storefront for Art and Architecture and at the Port Authority and were compiled into the final publication that outlines development strategies for the neighborhood.