The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) and Douglaston Development have announced a plan to build a two-towered, 450-unit affordable housing complex on garden-owned site located one block away from its 250-acre facilities in The Bronx. 

Real Estate Weekly explains that the project comes as a result of Douglaston signing a 99-year lease with NYBG for the right to develop the property. The development will bring two 12-story residential towers to the area that will offer below market-rate and senior housing units. The two towers will be connected at ground level by a 20,000-square-foot community-serving grocery store, according to the plan. The site is currently occupied by a collection of brick commercial buildings that include an existing Cherry Valley grocery store that will be relocated during construction and then moved back in as the two-phased project is completed. 

Phase one of the development will bring 188 affordable senior housing units to the site as well as the reopened grocery store. A second phase will erect a second tower with 260 affordable rental units targeted to a wider income demographic. 

The plan comes after a previous vision articulated for the site by NYBG that included a hotel was retooled to better suit the housing needs of the existing neighborhood. The project comes as NYBG fights a proposed nearby development that could drastically reduce the amount of sunlight that falls on a facility the organization operates in Brooklyn's Prospect Park.