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Beekman Plaza Plans Unveiled The public got its first glimpse at a small portion of the plans for the elusive Forest City Ratner project on Beekman Street, the 76-story tower to be built next to the New York Downtown Hospital. Plans for the public plazas associated with the project were presented to a Community Board 1 committee on Nov. 14. The design of the building itself, by famed architect Frank Gehry, is still under wraps. The two plazas will flank the eastern and western sides of the new building. The West Plaza will be nearly 12,000 square feet and the Williams Street Plaza about 4,000 square feet. According to James Corner, director of Field Operations, the firm designing the plazas, about a third of the space will be greenery. These plantings include 15 large canopy trees and 25 flowering understory trees beneath them, “to create a sense of scale.” “It’s a fairly richly and lushly and generously designed public space,” Corner told CB1’s Seaport/Civic Center Committee.
Along one side of the plaza, a row of vertical trellis structures covered with flowering plants and vines will provide a buffer between the plaza and adjacent buildings. The inclusion of public plazas in Forest City Ratner’s plans is at least partially the result of an out-of-court settlement from a lawsuit filed early in the planning stages by the residents of 140 and 150 Nassau Street. The residents objected to the Beekman building directly abutting their own buildings. As a concession, the developer amended the building plans, creating 60-to-70-foot buffers between the tower and the two buildings. As a result of slimming the building and including plazas, Forest City was allowed to extend the tower’s height from 55 stories to 76 stories.
When completed, portions of the building will include a new kindergarten-through-8th-grade school and a 25,000-square-foot outpatient facility for New York Downtown Hospital. Most of the building will house high-end condominiums. “It will be a phased project,” said Susi Yu, vice president of commercial and residential development for Forest City Ratner. “Our goal is to try to deliver the school by the summer of 2009. For the residential portion we’re shooting for the fourth quarter of 2009 or the beginning of 2010.” Following the presentation at the meeting, committee members expressed worries about the security of the plazas. They cited the likelihood of the moveable furniture being stolen, the possibility of homeless people taking up residence on the benches, and the potential for rowdy college kids disrupting the plazas. Several members advocated for security guards, or a fence. Clara Lipson, a longtime resident of the Seaport, echoed the worries of committee members. “We have an increasing homelessness issue,” she said. “How is that going to be addressed? We don’t want more homeless here.” Corner seemed noncommittal about the suggestion that a fence be installed to deal with such problems. “We wanted to make it totally public and totally accessible,” he said. “Leave it up to us, to the neighbors, as to whether we want a gated jewel or a jewel that attracts honeybees 24 hours a day,” responded committee member Marc Donnenfeld, who has lived at 140 Nassau Street for more than 20 years, Representatives from Forest City Ratner said they would discuss the board’s concerns, including hours of operation, with the Department of City Planning. But Corner seemed unconvinced that the open areas posed any security risk. “With the number of people coming in and out of that building,” he said, “the owner has to ensure security is taken care of. Right now the effort is to try to create a generous public space.”
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