Residents Mount Last-Gasp Effort to Block Telecom ‘Hotel’

 
 

By Carl Glassman

With groundbreaking expected as early as this month, residents have stepped up their campaign to stop a 240-foot-high telecommunications building that is set to rise on the southwest corner of Leonard Street and Broadway. The building, which needs no special city approvals, would house TyCom, a company that provides transatlantic fiber optic cable to telecommunications giants such as Sprint and AT&T.

Citing concerns about pollution, noise and electromagnetic fields, among other issues, neighbors have opposed the building since it was introduced to Community Board 1 in July. The attack on the World Trade Center, they say, is reason for even bigger worries. They point out that nearby 60 Hudson Street, a telecommunications hub, has been protected by police barricades since September.

"We are worried about living next to a potential target," said Karen Stamm, an opposition leader whose apartment at 366 Broadway overlooks the site, now a parking lot. "It’s a target with a very large diesel fuel tank in the basement, setting up a situation similar to the one that brought down 7 World Trade Center." As the fifth telecommunications building in the neighborhood, she said, TyCom would heighten the danger to local residents.

Heeding these concerns, Community Board 1 last month passed a resolution calling on the Bloomberg administration and the City Council to impose a moratorium on so-called hotels like the one planned for 366 Broadway.

The vote came a day after several residents met in the board’s office with project representatives. The residents left the meeting complaining about unanswered questions, such as how much fuel will be stored in the building and the amount of pollution the backup generators will send into the air.
 

But Richard Cook, the building’s architect, said that the developer, Edison Properties, had "come a long way" to voluntarily meet a number of the neighbors’ concerns, by "far exceeding" code requirements for emissions and bringing noise levels into compliance with restrictions that are yet to be put in place.

"I thought there had been a lot of progress made," Cook said. "I was disappointed that after several productive meetings, the [community board] resolution was issued the way it was."

At a time when Lower Manhattan’s economy is suffering in the wake of the Trade Center disaster, opponents complain that the building, which for security reasons will have no commercial use on the ground floor, will create a "dead zone" with little pedestrian or business activity. The building will be filled with equipment such as switches and servers that largely run themselves, and is expected to house no more than 100 workers.

"There are more people who come to Tribeca for the parking [at that site] than as a result of the 250,000-square -foot building, which is proposterous," said Bruce Ehrmann, a member of Community Board 1 and an outspoken opponent of telecommunciations buildings in residential areas.

"I thought TyCom should be applauded for still being willing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the rebuilding of downtown," countered Doug Sarini, vice presidents of Edison Properties. Asked whether Edison had considered other types of buildings on the site, Sarini said there was no market for them. "As a property owner," he said, "it comes down to economics."