Rendering of proposed new building at 31 Lispenard Street/Image Credit: GF55 and Urban Standard Capital

Landmarks Preservation Commission had concerns with proposed building’s façade and bulkhead height. On September 17, 2019, the Landmarks Preservation Commission held a public hearing on a Certificate of Appropriateness to demolish an existing one and a half-story commercial brick building and construct a new seven-story mixed-used building with an elevated mechanical bulkhead at 31 Lispenard Street, Manhattan. The building is on the corner of Lispenard and Church Streets and located within the Tribeca East Historic District. Built in 1947 by Mac L. Reiser, the building was originally occupied by a garage and retail store but now houses a restaurant and a barbershop. The application was presented by Gregory Dietrich of Gregory Dietrich Preservation Consulting, David Gross of GF55 Architects, and Seth Weissman of Urban Standard Capital.

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Image Credit: LPC/HubbNYC

Applicants will continue to preserve and restore the building in exchange for the approval to increase the building’s height. On August 28, 2019, the City Planning Commission voted to approve an application for a special permit for 121 Chambers Street in Tribeca South Historic District, Manhattan. The special permit would allow for the addition of two stories to the existing five-story building.

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Diagram shows proposed additions for 51 White Street. Image Credit: NYC CPC

Building next to unique synagogue will have two additional stories and mezzanine. On November 14, 2018, the City Planning Commission held a public hearing for a special permit application for 51 White Street in Tribeca, Manhattan. The special permit would allow for the addition of two stories to the top of the building and the construction of a mezzanine between the first and second floor. The building has been vacant since 2016 but formerly had a ground floor retail tenant and twelve residential apartments on the other floors. (more…)

Rendering of proposed development on 100 Franklin Street in Tribeca, Manhattan. Image Credit: DDG Partners. Image Courtesy of the Historic Districts Council.

Plan would see the construction of two connected mixed-use buildings on triangular-shaped lots, currently used for parking, on Sixth Avenue extension. On November 12, 2013, the Landmarks Preservation Commission held a hearing on the proposal for two adjacent irregularly shaped lots on 100 Franklin Street in the TriBeCa East Historic District.  DDG Partners is seeking to develop the property with two conjoined structures that would include ground-floor retail and residential use on the upper floors. Representing DDG, Valerie Campbell, attorney at Kramer Levin, stated that the triangular lots had been vacant since the extension of Sixth Avenue in 1930. Campbell also stated that because of the site’s unique characteristics, which includes a below-grade subway tunnel directly in front of the property lot line, the project would likely require variances from the Board of Standards and Appeals for lot coverage, street wall, and set back requirements. (more…)

15 Leonard Street

Landmarks approved a revised proposal for the Leonard Street site despite community opposition. On July 17, 2012, Landmarks approved developer Steven Schnall’s revised proposal to replace two one-story garages at 15 Leonard Street in the Tribeca West Historic District with a residential building. The nine-story, 108-foot building would rise seven stories at the streetwall, with a set-back, two-story penthouse. In February 2008, Landmarks approved a different plan to replace the garages with a seven-story building, but the project stalled and the property was sold.

At the proposal’s public hearing in May 2012, Wayne Turett, of Turett Collaborative Architects, presented Schnall’s plan. The building would have a 75-foot-wide, one-story base, with the 60-foot-wide upper floors aligned to the eastern lot line. This would create a 15-foot shaft to provide access to light and air to a neighboring building to the west as required by a property easement. The building’s front facade would be framed in painted metal and feature an asymmetrical, staggered pattern of translucent channel glass with loft sized windows. The penthouse would be clad in a lighter shade of painted metal. The building’s sidewalls would be clad in gray brick. Four garage entrances, made of a mixture of opaque and translucent glass panels, would be built at the ground level, with a central recessed pedestrian entrance in the middle. A steel-and-glass (more…)