Online News From The Tribeca Trib

CB1 Gives Counterproposals for Site 5C

by Ronald Drenger

Community Board 1 last month presented three building proposals that it said would be more appropriate for Site 5C, behind P.S. 234, than the 35-story residential tower that the city wants to see built there.

Frank Fish, a planning consultant hired by CB1, presented the alternatives at a June 26 hearing on the scope of a study that the city is preparing of the development’s impact on traffic, congestion, schools, parks and public services in the neighborhood.

The tallest of the community’s proposals would be for a 25-story building along West Street, between Chambers and Warren streets, with four-story wings extending along the side streets toward P.S. 234. Its other suggestions are for a 13-story building with 10-story extentions or a 23-story tower with one eight-story portion on Chambers Street.

The city and its chosen developer, Jack Resnick and Sons, have trimmed the size of the plan that they presented to CB1 in May, cutting five floors off the 40-story tower and reducing the number of apartments from 540 to 488. The development also includes an 18,000-square-foot community center..

But CB1, P.S. 234 parent leaders and local elected officials said that the project is still much too big. They warned that the project will choke already congested streets and sidewalks, cast shadows on Washington Market Park and overwhelm P.S 234 and P.S. 89 with new students. (See story, page 5.)

“The size of the building being proposed for 5C is taller than buildings in Battery Park City, and Battery Park City is no comparison to Tribeca,” said Madelyn Wils, CB1’s chairwoman. Tribeca became a successful residential neighborhood through zoning and landmarking changes in the 1990’s that preserved the low-rise character of the neighborhood, Wils said

Community representatives said Murray Street should be considered the boundary between the high-rise Financial District and Tribeca, and that the impact of the 5C plan must be considered together with an even bigger building, up to 65 stories, that the city wants to build on Site 5B, across Warren Street from P.S. 234.

“The welfare of over 700 Tribeca families who choose to send their children to their neighborhood school will be greatly impacted by any development of these two sites,” said Tim Johnson, the incoming PTA president at P.S. 234.

George Olsen, Johnson’s predecessor, suggested moving the dog run behind P.S. 234 to part of Site 5C where the city’s plan calls for a public plaza, to make room for the school’s expansion.

Janel Patterson, spokeswoman for the city’s Economic Development Corporation, which is overseeing development on Sites 5B and 5C, declined to comment on the community’s suggestions.