At its Feb. 18 meeting, Manhattan Community Board 7’s Housing and Land Use Committee voted to support a proposal by the Sisters of Charity Housing Development Corporation (SCHDC) to transform an Upper West Side building into 51 units of affordable and supportive housing. The vote was 11 in favor, none opposed, with three abstentions.
The building, known as St. Agnes Commons and located at 237 West 74th Street (between Broadway and West End Avenue), sits within the West End Collegiate Historic District and was originally built in 1910. It currently operates as a single-room occupancy residence for women — essentially a dormitory-style facility with small individual rooms and shared bathrooms — run by a nonprofit established by the Daughters of the Immaculate Conception, an order of nuns. The order is looking to sell the property because its members are aging (the average age is around 85, according to the presentation) and the building is no longer financially viable for them to operate.
SCHDC, a nonprofit founded in 1986 and sponsored by the Sisters of Charity of New York, plans to gut-renovate the building into self-contained studio apartments averaging roughly 350 square feet, each with its own kitchen and bathroom — a significant upgrade from the current configuration of small rooms without private facilities…