Buildings claimed that owner miscalculated permissible number of dwelling units for proposed office conversion. The Lefrak Organization in 2010 applied to Buildings for an alteration permit to convert its thirteen-story office tower at 97- 45 Queens Boulevard in Rego Park, Queens to a residential building. Lefrak built the 131,930 sq.ft. tower in 1960 pursuant to BSA approvals. Lefrak planned to convert the building’s top twelve floors to 108 apartments and leave the ground floor as commercial space. Because the building was constructed prior to 1961, Lefrak believed that the zoning resolution permitted the conversion of the building’s entire floor area, rather than limiting the conversion to the maximum residential floor area allowed by the site’s current C2-4 commercial zoning.

Buildings agreed that Lefrak could convert the top twelve stories, but claimed that the number of apartments would violate the zoning resolution. According to Buildings, Lefrak was limited to 56 apartments. Buildings reached this number by determining the maximum residential floor area permitted by the underlying C2-4 district regulations on a lot equal to Lefrak’s site, and then dividing that number by the zoning resolution’s dwelling unit conversion factor for a C2-4 district. Lefrak calculated the maximum number of apartments by dividing the building’s actual floor area by the C2-4 conversion factor. (read more…)

Knickerbocker Hotel

BSA approval needed before converting landmarked Times Square office building to a hotel. In September 2010, Highgate Holdings LLP sought an alteration permit to convert the former Knickerbocker Hotel at 1466 Broadway in Times Square to a 395-room hotel. The Knickerbocker Hotel, originally owned by John Jacob Astor IV, operated from 1906 until the prohibition era, when it was converted to office space. In 1979, BSA approved a plan to convert the Knickerbocker into a residential building, but that conversion never took place. Landmarks designated the building as an individual landmark in 1988. The site includes a fifteen-story building with frontages along West 42nd Street and Broadway and an incorporated eight-story building that fronts 41st Street and served as the original hotel’s service entrance.

Highgate planned to alter the Knickerbocker’s facades and interior, and demolish and reconstruct the rear portion of the fifteen-story building to create a larger rear court and provide light and air to the hotel rooms with rear-facing windows. Buildings denied Highgate’s permit because the plans violated the multiple dwelling law’s minimum inner-court regulations for transient hotels. Highgate appealed to BSA seeking a variance from the innercourt requirements. (read more…)

Permissible uses for vacant two-story building on Crosby Street expanded to include restaurant and bar. The owner of a vacant two-story building at 54 Crosby Street in SoHo applied to BSA for a use variance to permit a bar or restaurant on the building’s ground floor. The 4,535 sq.ft. building sits on a lot twenty feet wide and is built to less than half of the available floor area. The building was formerly used as a sculptor’s residence and studio, and its M1-5B manufacturing zoning does not permit commercial uses below the second floor.

The owner argued that the narrow building made a conforming manufacturing use impractical. The owner claimed that the building’s narrow floor plates were inefficient for a warehouse use and that the absence of an elevator would make transferring goods between floors difficult. According to an analysis submitted by the owner, only five of the 150 surrounding lots had widths of less than 25 feet and are built to less than half of the zoning district’s maximum floor area. (read more…)

Owner completed 99 percent of building’s foundation before City Council approved Astoria Rezoning plan. Plaza Group 36 LLC obtained excavation and foundation permits to begin work on a four-story residential building at 30-86 36th Street in Astoria, Queens. On May 18, 2010, Buildings issued a new building permit to Plaza Group for the project. One week later, the City Council approved the Astoria Rezoning, changing the site’s R6 zoning to R5B and rendering the 6,565 sq.ft. eight-unit project out of compliance with the district’s maximum permitted floor area and number of dwelling units.

Buildings inspected the site two days after the rezoning and initially determined that Plaza Group had completed the foundation by the enactment date. Buildings, however, issued a stop work order the next month after finding that three interior footings for steel columns were not completed before the rezoning. (read more…)

HPD claimed that abandoned railway complicated the development of two lots. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development applied for use variances in order to construct a three-building affordable housing development on two vacant through-block lots zoned for manufacturing in the East Tremont section of the Bronx.

The Phipps Houses Group’s 141-unit project will include an eight-story residential building and a ten-story mixed-use building at 1155 East Tremont Avenue, and a ten-story mixed-use building located directly across the street at 1176 East Tremont Avenue. Both lots were previously occupied by the elevated New York, Westchester, and Boston Interurban Railway. Remnants of the abandoned train trestle, including several in-ground concrete supports, remain on both lots.

HPD claimed that the trestle remnants, subsurface contamination, and the area’s high water table would constrain a viable manufacturing use for the site. HPD estimated that it would cost a combined $6.1 million to clean up the sites and remove the railway remnants. HPD also claimed that the requested variances were necessary in order to provide the minimum number of apartments needed to maintain the project’s financial viability and fulfill the agency’s programmatic goals. (read more…)