Westbridge files three 99-unit Bronx towers to capture 485-x

Westbridge Realty Group has filed three Bronx residential applications, each capped at exactly 99 units — a filing pattern that points to New York’s 485-x tax incentive, though Westbridge has not said it will use the abatement. Led by founder Steven Westreich, the company filed this week with the Department of Buildings for 297 units across three Soundview sites: 13-story, 99-unit buildings at 851 and 831 Rosedale Avenue, the latter also known as 600 Noble Avenue, and a 12-story, 99-unit structure at 863 Soundview Avenue, or 829 Soundview Avenue, Commercial Observer reported.

The unit count is the strategy. Under 485-x, projects of 100 units or more carry costly construction wage mandates, so developers across the city have clipped plans to 99 units — just small enough to duck the threshold, just large enough to keep the tax benefit. Westbridge’s three filings show the arithmetic in their paperwork: each lists the same 50,687 square feet of commercial space whether the tower rises 12 or 13 stories, and all three name Leandro Nils Dickson as architect.

Westbridge is far from alone. The same outlet notes that Grun Group filed plans last month for a pair of 99-unit towers in Woodlawn Heights, Vilson Lumaj bought a site in June for two 99-unit buildings, and Altmark Group sold three Mott Haven lots in June for ground-up 99-unit housing. Westbridge itself filed in May for a 99-unit building at 4388 Broadway in Washington Heights, making this week’s Soundview filings the company’s second 99-unit filing of the year.

Across the three filings, the site reads as an afterthought: identical commercial square footage, near-identical heights, and a configuration that bends around the wage mandate rather than the neighborhood. For sponsors underwriting multifamily in the boroughs, the 99-unit cap has become a line item — shave a few units off the top, avoid the wage costs, and keep the abatement intact. The city may not have intended that housing product, but the filing table makes the outside logic visible: 50,687 square feet of commercial space at 851, 831, and 863.