Corn Exchange Building proposal (does not reflect LPC modifications). Credit: Danois Architects

Artimus Construction plans to restore the deteriorated remains of the original six-story Harlem landmark. On September 11, 2012, Landmarks approved Artimus Construction’s redevelopment proposal for the severely dilapidated Mount Morris Bank, also known as the Corn Exchange building, at 81 East 125th Street in Harlem. Landmarks designated the 1884 six-story building as an individual City landmark in 1993. The red-brick building once featured a combination of Queen Anne and Romanesque Revival-style architecture and terra cotta and iron ornament, but has rapidly deteriorated since its designation.

The building was abandoned in the 1970s, and lost its mansard roof to a fire in the late 1990s. In 2000, the City’s Economic Development Corporation selected Ethel Bates to rehabilitate the building and turn it into a culinary school. Bates failed to maintain the property, and EDC sued to reclaim title. Landmarks later filed a demolition-by-neglect lawsuit against Bates, citing the building’s missing windows and collapsed floors. In 2009, Buildings partially demolished the building’s remaining top two floors citing dangerous conditions above the second floor. Two years later, EDC issued an RFEI seeking a developer to rehabilitate the building.

On April 24, 2012, Artimus Construction presented its initial plan to Landmarks. Artimus’ Barry Gurvitch described the proposal as an attempt to “recreate the grandeur and ambiance” of the original Corn Exchange, while also creating (more…)

Future site of Western Beef in West Harlem

BSA’s waiver of rear yard regulations needed to allow development of 79,498 square-foot supermarket on West 155th Street. Cactus of Harlem LLC applied to the Board of Standards & Appeals for a special permit to develop a 79,428-square-foot Western Beef supermarket at 280 West 155th Street in Harlem. The  project site is at the corner of West 155th Street and Frederick Douglas Boulevard, and comprises three lots currently used for parking. Cactus of Harlem’s proposal called for a three-story building with supermarket uses on the ground and second floors, and commercial uses on the third floor. The project would include 79 underground parking spaces.

The lot is zoned C8-3, and an R7-2 district abuts the site’s southern lot line. Cactus of Harlem needed BSA’s approval to waive the zoning resolution’s rear-yard requirements because the building’s ground floor would extend to the rear lot line and encroach within the 30-foot open area required in commercially zoned lots abutting residentially zoned districts. BSA in 2000 had granted Cactus of Harlem a special permit to develop a smaller supermarket on the site, but the special permit lapsed and Cactus of Harlem acquired two neighboring lots in which to develop the project.

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Photo of project rendering courtesy of the Historic Districts Council

Owner proposed a one-story brown metal addition to 1890s rowhouse on St. Nicholas Avenue. On July 10, 2012, Landmarks considered 719/721 SNA Realty LLC’s proposal to build a one-story addition on top of a five-story rowhouse at 721 St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem’s Hamilton Heights/Sugar Hill Historic District. Sitting at the corner of St. Nicholas Avenue and West 146th Street, the 1890s building features a curved tower with an arcading attic story facing St. Nicholas Avenue, and a brick parapet and a mansard roof facing West 146th Street. The building also features brownstone bands, which it shares with two adjacent rowhouses on St. Nicholas Avenue.

Architect Richard Franklin, of Franklin Associates, presented the proposal, which called for a brown-metal clad rooftop addition reaching nine-feet two-inches in height. The addition would set-back roughly eleven feet from the St. Nicholas Avenue facade, and sit flush with the West 146th Street facade. Franklin testified that the project would revitalize the deteriorating structure, while maintaining its original character. The building had long housed mixed uses, with retail on the ground-floor and residential uses above.

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Credit: The Department of City Planning

City Planning Commission certified 140-block Bed-Stuy North Rezoning and 90-block West Harlem Rezoning: included in the Brooklyn proposal is a text amendment that would also apply Citywide and to areas of the Bronx. At City Planning Commission’s review session on May 7, 2012, the Commission certified the Department of City Planning’s contextual rezoning proposal for the northern half of Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. The Bedford-Stuyvesant North Rezoning plan would impact a 140-block area generally bounded by Flushing Avenue to the north, Quincy Street to the south, Broadway to the east, and Classon and Franklin Avenues to the west. The proposal was requested by Brooklyn Community Board 3 and local elected officials after the City rezoned the southern half of the neighborhood in 2007. (read CityLand’s coverage here).

Bedford-Stuyvesant is a residential neighborhood characterized by late 19th- and early 20th-century rowhouses, small and medium-sized apartment buildings, and several large, tower-in-the-park NYCHA (more…)

Two-building project will include market-rate condominiums on West 116th Street and an affordable rental building on West 117th Street. On August 17, 2011, the City Council approved L+M Development Partners Inc.’s proposal to develop two mixed-use buildings on a through block lot between West 117th and West 116th Streets, in the block between Fifth Avenue and Malcolm X Boulevard in Harlem. The midblock project will be developed on a lot currently used by an adjacent building as a parking lot and a basketball court. L+M requested a rezoning to facilitate the construction of a twelve-story condominium building fronting West 116th Street and a nine-story affordable housing building fronting West 117th Street.  (more…)