In May 2006, the Department of Transportation obtained final approval on a 20-year street furniture franchise, a plan that will bring over $1 billion to the City while it meets its main goal of providing more useful bus shelters, sleek news racks, standard-sized newsstands and for the first time: permanent public toilets. The plan originated from a 1992 experiment by the David N. Dinkins’ administration that placed four public pay toilets on city sidewalks but was never pushed to a final contract despite being hailed a success.

At DOT, Kerry Gould-Schmit was among those who advocated that DOT revisit the revenue-generating plan in 2002 as the City strained to regain its financial footing after 9/11. Now as DOT’s Assistant Commissioner for the Coordinated Street Furniture Franchise, Gould-Schmit has brought the proposal through approvals, litigation and early implementation. She talks to CityLand about the plan and her path to DOT. (more…)

Construction will require demolition of two Tribeca buildings. In August, Landmarks issued a permit for construction of a new building within the North Tribeca Historic District. The eight-story red brick and limestone residential building will be constructed at 50-52 Laight Street and will require the demolition of two buildings: a 1919-built, one-story freight building at 50 Laight Street and a 1940s-built, one-story red brick garage at 52 Laight Street. Landmarks allowed the demolition of both existing buildings, calling them insignificant and noting that neither contributed to the Tribeca North Historic District. The approved design would be seven stories along the street wall and includes a loggia, an open-sided arcade along the building’s roofline. Landmarks liked the scale of the building, but noted that the loggia was atypical for the district.

Landmarks also issued a permit for an eight-story, 23,000- square-foot residential building proposed by Atlantic Walk LLC to replace the existing parking lot at 414 Washington Street on the corner of Laight Street. Designed by Joseph Pell Lombardi, the new building will have patterned red brickwork on its Laight and Washington Street facades, recessed bays on its second through fifth floors, arch window openings, and will be set back from the street at its sixth story. In its approval, Landmarks emphasized the importance of the corner lot, noting that the new building would provide a needed termination to the block and strengthen the streetscape. (more…)

Landmarks takes first step towards designation of new, 470-building historic district. On June 20, 2006, Landmarks voted to hold a public hearing on the proposed Crown Heights North Historic District, which will encompass 470 buildings, primarily along Dean and Pacific Streets; St. Mark’s, New York, Nostrand and Bedford Avenues; and Grand Square in Brooklyn.

At the June 20th vote, Landmarks staff provided a synopsis on the area’s transformation from farmland to the rapid row house construction that followed the Brooklyn Bridge’s opening. Among the buildings mentioned were the 1850-55 frame house on Dean Street, the Queen Anne style row houses at 1164-1182 Dean Street, and the New York Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church. (more…)

Times Square garage permitted to open up to public and increase capacity to 386 spaces. Owners of the Viacom Building, located at 1515 Broadway between West 44th and West 45th Streets in Times Square, applied to City Planning in 2005 to convert the building’s existing 225-space accessory parking garage into a public parking garage and to increase its capacity by 161 spaces and 19 reservoir spaces. The garage would be fully attended and access would remain on West 44th Street. No new construction would be needed to increase the garage’s capacity to a total of 386 spaces.

The 54-story Viacom Building contains over 1.7 million square feet of floor area used primarily as office space. It also contains MTV’s television studios, the 1,700-seat Minskoff Theater and the 2,100-seat Nokia Times Square, formerly the Loew’s Astor Plaza movie theater. The existing garage was originally authorized as an accessory parking garage for tenants. (more…)

Garage will be part of large mixed-use project. HLP Properties LLC sought a special permit for a 718- space public parking garage on a Chelsea site spanning an entire city block between West 17th and West 18th Streets and Tenth and Eleventh Avenues. Access to the garage would be located on West 17th Street, a one-way westbound street. The 76,400- square-foot site currently contains a surface parking lot used primarily by the United States Drug Enforcement Agency for employee parking and storage of confiscated vehicles. The High Line, the abandoned elevated rail line slated to become open space, cuts through the lot.

The garage would be only one part of HLP’s proposed development plan for the site, consisting of a two-tower, mixed-use development with 870 residential units, 23,000 sq.ft. of retail space and a second parking garage for tenants with 180 spaces. HLP anticipates that only the 718-space public parking garage will require Commission approval. (more…)