Press

A Stanley Kubrick movie about the year in New York City development might be called “How Developers Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Conversions.”

In TRD Data’s tally of the biggest project filings of 2024, office-to-residential conversions took four of the top five spots. The trend, fueled by an office glut and housing shortage, may well continue, as the state in April okayed a tax break for conversions that make a quarter of units permanently affordable.

Metro Loft will tap the incentive for its conversion of the Pfizer Building — the largest project of the year, which the developer was planning before the tax break passed. Its principal, Nathan Berman, believes the program will push more projects forward.

“I believe so,” Berman said. “This particular incentive is very meaningful for conversions.”

This year’s top filings also reflect the comeback of retail, much love for luxury condos and some for multifamily, plus the city’s first privately financed stadium in generations.

Taken together, the filings show that New York developers dug themselves out of 2023’s rut.

To identify the top projects proposed in 2024, TRD Data analyzed new building and major alteration permits filed with the city’s Department of Buildings and ranked them by square footage.

Here are the top 10.

Williamsburg Wharf, phase 2

Miki Naftali kicked off 2024 by filing plans for the final two buildings of his million-square-foot Williamsburg waterfront project, Williamsburg Wharf.

The two towers at 80 Wharf Way would span 387,000 square feet and deliver 218 condo units.

They would flesh out Phase 2 of Naftali Group’s Williamsburg Wharf, which includes five 22-story towers on one of the last undeveloped patches of the North Brooklyn waterfront. The development will be part rental, part condo, with an “urban resort” feel, as Naftali put it.