Today your humble Albablogger opened up the Albany Business review (I subscribe so you don't have to, my precious Albalites) and saw the following headline: $15 million development would bring new apartments to Albany's Pine Hills. Looks like someone is going to knock down seven of the current haggard-looking, terrifyingly conflagration-prone student houses on Quail and Western (a total of 23 apartments) in order to replace them with a big new five-story building that will include 102 apartments and ground floor commercial space.
This Albablogger is a big fan of increasing density here in Albalonia -- it's good for the well-being of our fair city (you want more cool stuff? Then you need more people to use the stuff, and a bigger tax base to pay for everything), for keeping rents low, and for decreasing over-reliance on automobiles for every-damn-thing. And it sure looks like we're going to be seeing a LOT of new apartments coming to Albany in the next couple of years. But how many apartments are we talking about? Let's see if we can try to do a roundup of some of the bigger projects being developed right now.
Project #1: The Lofts at Pine Hills
As described above: a project on Quail and Western. 102 apartments, 5,200 square feet of retail space.
Project #2: The Quack
Yes, "The Quack" -- it's that big hole in the ground on Broadway near the Old English. 130 apartments, a 132-room hotel, and 16,000 square feet of retail space.
Project #3: 760 Broadway
This one doesn't seem to have a cute name. It will, however, have 88 apartments and 1,250 square feet of retail space.
Project #3: @Hudson Park
I'm skeptical about the decision to put "@" in a project name, but at least this rehab of a few formerly vacant and red X'd industrial buildings looks cool. This one is also almost finished -- they're currently accepting applications for a March move-in date. 75 apartments.
Project #4: The Redburn Portfolio
This is actually a whole bigass bundle of projects: if you pay any attention at all to stuff going on in Albany you've already heard about this. Your devoted Albablogger is especially pumped about this one because it involves the rescue of my beloved Kenmore Hotel from more decades of neglect. 331 apartments and 50,000 (!!!) square feet of retail space.
Project #5: The Lofts at Washington Park
Let's all give thanks to Lord Nipper that they bothered to spell out the "at." This formerly vacant historic building is getting 36 apartments and 3,000 square feet of retail space.
Project #6: Pretty Much All of Clinton Ave
No cute name for this one, either, but this is probably one of the most exciting projects going on in Albany right now: a Rochester based company is rehabbing 70 distressed buildings in Arbor hill to turn them into affordable housing. Although a few of the projects above are mixed-income and will include affordable units, this one is particularly ambitious. 200 apartments (and a laundromat).
Projects #7 and #8: 420 Broadway and 402 Broadway
Lumping these together because they're just a few doors apart: seven apartments at 420 Broadway and 4 apartments at 402. A total of 11 apartments (plus some new commercial).
Project #9: 54 North Pearl
The Emery Building. 4 Apartments.
Project # The Wilson
This would be new construction on 191 North Pearl. 18 apartments.
So What's the Total?
Keeping in mind that these are just the major projects that I'm aware of, and doesn't factor in any of the smaller brownstone rehabs etc. going on around the city (or other big projects that I've missed), we're up to 995 new apartments and over 75,000 square feet of retail space. If these apartments fill up -- and other recent developments have -- we're looking at a whole lot of new people living in Albany proper, and possibly a whole bunch of new businesses, too. It will be interesting to see how all of this shakes out, and how many more similar projects we might see popping up on the planning board agenda this year.