Once-Burned Condo Seeks Peace Plan by Ronald Drenger When Lan Tran Cao, owner of Gallery Viet Nam on North Moore Street, signed a lease in October for two storefronts at 345 Greenwich St., she was thrilled. She had found a perfect spot for the Vietnamese restaurant she plans to open. And she could move her gallery right next door.   Residents of 345 Greenwich Street were less pleased, at least about the restaurant. “I felt dread,” said Suzanne Barbero, who lives on the third floor with her husband, Manuel, and their 3-year old daughter. “I thought, ‘Oh no, here we go again.’ ” Barbero and her neighbors in the six-story condominium have the usual concerns about living above a restaurant—noise, food odors, kitchen exhaust, garbage. But their anxiety runs deeper. It can be summed up in one word: Laparue. That’s the club that opened three years ago in the same space where Cao is placing her restaurant. Laparue’s owners had promised an upscale French-Asian restaurant with soft background music. What they delivered was a late-night lounge, complete with velvet rope and a bouncer outside, and loud, pounding music inside that reverberated through the building into the early morning hours. The sleep-deprived residents battled Laparue for a year—in court and in hearing rooms of the State Liquor Authority, which tried to revoke the club’s liquor license. City marshals shut Laparue down, allegedly for nonpayment of rent, in July 2001. The furniture store that moved in last year was a godsend for the residents—the Barcelona chairs on sale were nice and quiet—but it closed suddenly in July. A home furnishings store moved out of the second storefront in September, opening up the opportunity for Cao and her partners. The residents are determined to do what they can, before the restaurant opens, to avoid problems. And Cao says she is eager to work with them to address their concerns. “I understand where they’re coming from,” she said. “They’ve been burned before. I’m trying to make them understand that I’m not the same as Laparue.” Cao noted that she and one of her partners live in Tribeca—“We’re part of the community.” Last month Barbero and Paul Sisson, president of 345 Greenwich’s condo board, along with their engineer met with Cao and her partners and their engineer, to review the restaurant’s architectural plans. The residents objected to a set of double doors the restaurant wanted to add in front, and in follow-up discussions the group was seeking a solution. They also planned meetings this month to go over plans for noise and odor control, garbage storage and the location and size of air conditioning units and exhaust ducts. The board will have to sign off on plans that the restaurant submits to the city Buildings Department and the Landmarks Preservation Commission. “We’re trying to accommodate each other,” said Cao, who hopes to move her gallery at the end of this month and open the 100-seat restaurant, where she will be one of the chefs, in February. “We want to be good neighbors.” The residents said they appreciated the cooperative spirit, but intend to remain vigilant. “Irrespective of the good intentions of the new tenants, it’s up to us to protect the quality of life for everyone in the building,” Sisson said.