Pedestrian Plaza Is Proposed for FiDi's Block-Long Thames Street

Rendering of Thames Street, between Broadway and Trinity Place, as a proposed pedestrian plaza. Beyer Blinder Belle 

A dark and narrow street that runs between twin landmark buildings on Broadway is being reimagined as a lighted and lively pedestrian plaza.

Thames Street runs the single block between Broadway and Trinity Place; only a pizzeria and a shoe shine and barber shop open onto its sloping street. If the owners of the two 22-story office buildings, 111 and 115 Broadway, have their way, tables and chairs will dot a freshly cobbled street and there will be store windows and commerce where now are bricked-over openings along the buildings’ walls. Cars and trucks will no longer be allowed.

The buildings’ owner, Capital Properties, is applying to the Department of Transportation’s Street Plaza Program and will also seek other city approvals. But preliminary reviews of the proposal by the DOT and Landmarks Preservation Commission have been encouraging, according to Philip Habib, a planning consultant on the project. Habib presented the plan this month to Community Board 1’s Financial District Committee. As the application makes its way through the approval process, the consultants will return to the community board for further advisory review.

Reaction this month by the CB1 committee was largely favorable, despite some expressed concern about noise from events that may take place in the future plaza.

The plans show 11 new windows on the lowest levels of the two buildings, created in what now are closed recessed openings that face the street. Because the street slopes down toward Trinity Place, some of the windows closer to Broadway would peek out from above the sidewalk from the basement level. “As you get up [the slope] it’s really tricky,” Habib said. “The applicant is anticipating opening up as much as possible and trying to create as much interface as possible with the cellar [level].” (The Broadway entrances to the buildings are one level above the Trinity Place entrances.)

If all approvals are granted as hoped, construction is anticipated to begin in spring of 2018 and completed that fall.