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