Situated on the Hudson River, the onetime Navy Homeport on Staten Island’s North Shore sat vacant and unused after it was decommissioned. In 2004, architects and developers came together with the city of New York to begin to revitalize the underutilized site and turn the former 35-acre base into its own compact city.
Minno & Wasko Architects and Planners designed URBY Staten Island, a 571-unit, mixed-use development that includes 35,000 square feet of retail space, restaurants, walking paths, and parks. A second phase will provide 328 additional residences when completed.
When repurposing the site, specific zoning requirements meant the team needed to provide a public walkway that connected a new, public riverfront esplanade with the surrounding retail while offering direct views to the water.
The two buildings of four and five stories each surround Navy Pier Court, a private drive between the buildings with two 10-foot-wide, tree-lined sidewalks, bordered by seating and plantings. The project’s buildings, which are designed with metal, glass, and Corten steel in a nod to the site’s past as a warehouse district, sit in two large “U” shapes around the landscaped area, which provides views of Lower Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Verrazano Bridge, and New York’s Upper Bay.
The project isn’t short on amenities that make the development feel like an all-encompassing neighborhood. In addition to the public outdoor spaces, URBY has a bodega, a communal kitchen with flex spaces for cooking classes, an entrance café and coffee shop, a two-story fitness center, a pool, and an urban farm above the parking garage. The site is adjacent to the Staten Island Railroad Station and a four-minute subway ride to the Staten Island Ferry.
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