Eighty residential units, ground-floor retail and parking garage to replace SoHo parking lot. The developer Albert Laboz sought Landmarks approval for the construction of a nine-story, 110 ft. metal and glass building at 311 West Broadway in the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District on a through-block lot with frontage on both Wooster Street and West Broadway. The building, designed by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects to replace the existing at-grade parking lot, included eight stories along the West Broadway streetwall with a single-story glass setback, a central courtyard, and seven stories along the Wooster Street streetwall with a single-story glass setback. Gwathmey Siegel had modified its original proposal, which included several layers of setbacks at the roof. The building would include eighty, 1,200 square-foot residential units, street-level retail on West Broadway and a 150-space parking garage, which would compensate for the parking lost with the building’s development.

Landmarks approved, finding that the overall massing of the building related to the buildings along West Broadway and Wooster Street, that the glass material on the one-story setback blended into the surroundings, and that the metal and glass modernist design recalled the evolution of the materials used in the historic district.

The development requires a special permit from the Planning Commission to allow residential use on the ground floor along Wooster Street. Laboz’s application for a special permit is pending with the Planning Department.

LPC: 311 West Broadway (COFA# 05-5520) (February 16, 2005) (Howard Zipser, Stadtmauer Bailkin Biggins, LLC; Albert Laboz, United American Land Co.; Robert Siegel, Gwathmey Siegel & Assoc. Architects). CITYADMIN

129-lot area rezoned to permit residential, live-work and retail. The Planning Commission approved the proposed rezoning of a 129-lot area of Port Morris in the South Bronx that altered the area’s manufacturing zoning to mixed-use, facilitating increased live-work, residential and small commercial business development. The proposed new zoning builds on a 1997 zoning action that established the Port Morris Special Mixed-Use District – the city’s first mixed-use district – within a five-block area of Port Morris to permit diverse as-of-right uses, facilitate legalization of illegal conversions and support the continued expansion of Bruckner Boulevard’s string of antique shops. In the eight years following the 1997 rezoning, 185 new residential units were developed in the five-block area.

The new zoning would extend the mixed-use district to an 11- block area generally bounded by Park Avenue on the west, Willow Avenue on the east, the Major Deegan Expressway on the north and south to the Harlem River and the Harlem River Yards. The Department found that illegal conversions were prevalent in the area and over 40 percent of the lots were vacant, nderutilized or contained abandoned manufacturing structures. Three separate mixed-use zones (M1-2/R6A, M1-3/R8 and M1-5/R8) would be created to allow a large range of uses – residential, community facility and small commercial – while also restricting the height and size of development to more closely match the area’s existing scale. (more…)

Landmarks approved the proposal, finding that the access changes were well integrated into the building’s design, thus eliminating any discernable impact on the perception of the building from the street. The geometric paving, due to its simple repetitive pattern, would be in the spirit of the original plaza design. Landmarks, noting that the kiosk’s footprint aligns with the pattern of the plaza paving and that the water feature, when off, blends with the material of the steps, found these features complementary to the overall design.Brooklyn Public Library entrance will be enlarged and geometric paving added to plaza. Landmarks approved substantial renovation of the Central Building of the Brooklyn Public Library at 2 Eastern Parkway and Grand Army Plaza. The 1935 Central Building, a Modern Classical structure designed by Alfred Morton Githens and Francis Keally and built in 1935, was designated in 1997 as an individual landmark. The Library sought a Binding Report to redesign the entrance of the Central Building in order to enlarge the plaza, add an access ramp and alter the entrance steps. Aesthetic changes, such as adding kiosks, a water feature and a geometric- patterned series of paving stones in the library’s plaza, were also proposed. (more…)

New development potential of 26 million sq.ft. of office space and 13.6 million sq.ft. of residential; 24 acres of parks, a subway extension, and a new boulevard approved. On November 22, 2004, the Commission approved the Bloomberg Administration’s major urban planning initiative for Manhattan’s Hudson Yards, the area bounded by West 30th and West 43rd Streets, running from Seventh and Eighth Avenues to Twelfth Avenue.

The ten applications before the Commission would achieve a comprehensive redevelopment plan, the expansion of City services and a rezoning of the entire area. At the center of the plan for redevelopment is the transfer from the MTA to the Department of Citywide Administrative Services of the 30-acre, eastern portion of the Caemmerer Yard, spanning from West 30th to West 33rd Streets and from Tenth to Eleventh Avenues, for construction of a platform over the yard. (See C 040505 PQM.) The platform would facilitate future private development and the City’s construction of new parks. Further, the rail yard transfer would partially enable the No. 7 Flushing Line expansion, which is proposed to extend from Times Square to West 41st Street and Tenth Avenue, then south to West 34th Street and Eleventh Avenue. (See C 040504 PQM.) (more…)

Central Riverdale, Spuyten Duyvil, Van Cortlandt Village and Throgs Neck down-zoned. On September 28, 2004, the City Council approved four major Bronx down-zonings.

In Central Riverdale and Spuyten Duyvil, the Council rezoned a 30-block area to restrict any new buildings’ height to six and seven stories rather than the 14 stories previously permitted. Currently, 92 percent of the neighborhoods’ buildings are under seven stories.

The Council also rezoned a 15-block area of Van Cortlandt Village, limiting the size and floor area of new dwellings to a size that more closely matched the existing low density buildings. The down-zonings, opposed at the Council by several homeowners and commercial building owners, grew out of a §197-a rezoning proposal initiated in 1998 by Bronx Community Board 8 under the Charter provision that allows a board to propose a plan for its development, growth, and improvement. (more…)