Luxury apartments approved once developer reduced the height and size. Red Brick Canal LLC sought approval to construct an 11-story, 25,025-square-foot residential and commercial building at 482 Greenwich Street, a lot with frontage along Greenwich and Canal Streets at the border of Tribeca and SoHo in Manhattan. The project site, a 3,136-square-foot, trapezoidshaped lot located in a commercial zone (C6-2A), currently contains an unused gas station which will be demolished. The City had rezoned the lot from manufacturing (M1-6) in 2003 as part of the Hudson Square rezoning.

Red Brick’s project failed to comply with floor area, height, yard, lot coverage, curb cut and garage size requirements, necessitating variances. Red Brick, represented by Deirdre Carson, argued that the lot’s small size, its unconventional shape, its location within a flood plain, and the need to remediate the soil made an as-of-right project infeasible. Red Brick added that, due to the odd shape of the lot, the units would have greater wall space than floor space, which would diminish the units’ value. (more…)

Lower Manhattan parking lot to be replaced with 815,000-squarefoot residential/retail project. The Planning Commission approved a proposal of the Economic Development Corporation and the project developer, Edward J. Minskoff Equities, Inc., to replace a City-owned surface parking lot in Lower Manhattan with an 815,000-square-foot mixed-use project. Located on a 95,565-square-foot site bounded by West, Warren, Greenwich and Murray Streets, the proposal includes 402 condominium and rental units, a 400-space parking garage and 165,000 sq.ft. of retail space featuring a ground floor supermarket to be occupied by Whole Foods.

A two-story base building will cover the entire site and house the Whole Foods, other retail and the residential lobbies. Above the base, a 388-foot, 32-story tower containing the project’s condo units will front West Street and a second smaller rental residential tower will front the eastern part of the site along Greenwich and Warren Streets. Access to parking and loading would be gained from Murray Street, the only two-way access street adjoining the site. Directly across Warren Street from the site, a 29-story, mixed-use project at 200 Chambers Street is under construction based on a September 2004 City approval. 1 CityLand 1 (Oct. 15, 2004). (more…)

One-story addition was visible from adjacent street. In 2002, the owners of 363-65 Greenwich Street, an 1866 Italianate loft in Manhattan’s Tribeca West Historic District, sought approval to add a one-story rooftop addition. Landmarks’ staff approved without a hearing after concluding that the addition would not be visible from any public street. When construction was completed, the owners realized that the addition was visible along Harrison Street and consequently the staff-level approval was flawed. The owners then sought a second approval.

At the hearing, Commissioner Joan Gerner praised the owners’ “refreshing honesty” in coming forward with the second application. Landmarks approved, finding that the constructed addition was barely visible and did not detract from the historic district. (more…)

Developer reduced tower by 60 feet and increased community facilities. The City Council approved, without additional changes, the City Planning Commission’s resolutions adopted on July 28, 2004 to allow construction of a 29-story mixed-use building at 200 Chambers Street. The Council’s action completes the designation of the site as an Urban Development Action Area, allows the transfer of City-owned land to the City’s Economic Development Corporation, and approves a special permit to modify height and setback. In the course of the ULURP process, the developer reduced the height of the tower from 360 ft. to 300 ft., eliminated an urban plaza, committed 10,000 sq.ft. of a 40,000-square-foot community facility space to the adjacent P.S. 234, and reduced the project’s size.

The proposed development raised concerns because of the site’s history, the potential shadows on Tribeca’s Washington Market Park, and the impact of new residents on the already overcrowded P.S. 234. The site, part of an expired Urban Renewal Area Plan, had a history of failed development proposals, leaving it one of only two remaining undeveloped sites in the area. (more…)