Residents Scrutinize Proposed Tower for Site 5C

 by Ronald Drenger

A public presentation last month on the city’s plan to allow a 35-story residential tower to be built on the undeveloped lot next to P.S. 234, at Chambers, West and Warren streets, did little to quell community leaders’ opposition to the project.
A preliminary rendering, looking south, shows the building next to P.S. 234.

Scott Resnick, the project’s developer, and Brandon Haw, a director at Foster and Partners, the London-based architecture firm that is designing the building, unveiled renderings of the structure and said that they had taken steps to minimize its impact on the community.

“We tried to create as slender a building as possible,” Haw said on Sept. 24 at the presentation to a Community Board 1 committee and interested local residents. The tower proposal, which had been reduced from 40 stories earlier this year, was also made slimmer, he said, and the design and materials—gray-tinted glass and a light-colored metal—give “a lighter touch” to the building and “break down the scale.” The building “breathes a breath of fresh air into the Downtown area and looks to the future,” he said.
But community leaders remained unconvinced. They said that the project is much too big and would choke the neighborhood, cutting off light, overwhelming Tribeca’s small-scale buildings, congesting streets and bringing more residents than the area and local schools can accommodate.

The 360-foot tower would rise on the West Street side of the site, which is known as Site 5C, with an eight-story extension that would extend along Chambers Street and ground-level retail on both streets. The latest proposal includes about 480 apartments, a 102- car underground garage, with its entrance on Warren Street, and an 11,000-square-foot public plaza.

Haw presented the layout for an 18,000-square-foot community center in the new building, with an entrance on Chambers Street, a basketball court and gym equipment in the basement and multi-use rooms for community programs on the second floor.

Bob Townley, director of Manhattan Youth, which runs a wide range of programs for local children and would probably run the center, said he hoped the community space could be expanded and could include a pool.

“With so many new residential units coming, the community’s needs have grown, just as the developer’s and the city’s needs have grown,” he said.

In response to community concerns about shadows that the building would cast on nearby open spaces, Haw presented studies showing that in June, afternoon shadows would reach only the southern edge of Washington Market Park, but that in March and September, shadows would cover much of the park at around 3 p.m.

Community members are particularly concerned about overcrowding at local schools, including P.S. 234, which is adjacent to Site 5C.

Scott Resnick, the developer of the 35-story residential tower proposed for Site 5C next to P.S. 234, at a presentation to the community last month. Photo by Carl Glassman
“I worry about it,” Sandy Bridges, P.S. 234’s principal, said at the presentation.

“The size and the way it’s laid out, I think it’s going to destroy P.S. 234,” George Olsen, a community board member and the school’s former PTA president, said later.

Resnick, the developer, said he expected “a limited number” of families in this building, because it will include only studios and one- and two-bedroom apartments.
Among the shadow studies presented, this one, showing shadows that the building would cast in the late afternoon of March 21 and Sept. 21, reflected the greatest impact on Washington Market Park.

“I don’t really think this building will impact on the population of your school,” he said.

The city and Resnick have almost tripled the size of the overall project compared to their initial plan for the site, but the community center has remained at 18,000 square feet.

The city is preparing a study of the project’s potential impacts on the neighborhood. But community leaders say that the Site 5C development must be considered together with the larger residential project that the city wants on Site 5B, across the street at Warren and Greenwich streets.

Resnick hopes to break ground by the end of 2004 and complete construction in late 2006. He is seeking $200 million in tax-free Liberty Bond financing.

“It’s impossible to build anything without receiving understandable concern from the community,” he said after the presentation. “I think we’re doing a good job in addressing those concerns.”

But Madelyn Wils, chairwoman of Community Board 1, disagreed. “It just sucks too much out of the neighborhood without giving enough back,” she said.