Glass Crown Proposed For Landmark

By Nick Pinto
POSTED NOVEMBER 2, 2007

It took more than $60 million to restore the historic Battery Maritime Building's exterior to its original glory. Now the city’s Economic Development Corporation and its development partner want to crown the 1909 ferry building with a four-story glass-encased hotel. But Community Board 1 and the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission have their doubts about the plan.

The EDC, which owns and restored the building, announced in June that it had accepted a proposal by the Dermot Company to develop the building over a 99-year lease. The building’s first floor would continue to be used by the Governors Island ferry. But the developer says the EDC's other main request-for a public food market on the second floor-is impractical. Instead, they are planning a warren of small retail spaces, culinary instruction facilities and “food-related media content,” surrounding the second floor’s 9,000-square-foot great hall.

Dermot partner Stephen Benjamin said the great hall would function as a public space during the daytime.

“Our imagining is that this space becomes the living room for Downtown,” he said. At night, the space would become a private hall, “akin to Cipriani’s.” Dermot said the hall’s private use would help bankroll its public use.

But the real money-maker in Dermot’s plan, designed by Rogers Marvel Architects, is the construction of a 146-room hotel and rooftop restaurant, housed in a four-story glass cap on top of the existing building, nearly doubling the landmark’s height. Benjamin said he expected the hotel rooms to cost between $350 and $500 per night. While no hotel operator has been selected, the restaurant would be run by the Poulakakos family, whose several Downtown eateries includes Harry's of Hanover Square.

In presentations to public officials last month, William Higgins, a preservation consultant hired by Dermot, tried to settle doubts about putting a glass hotel on top of the landmark. The eclectic style of the original building “invites dialogue” with more modern styles, Higgins argued, and because the it was planned as part of a never-realized ferry complex, the building is a fragment in need of completion. The glass addition, he said, gives the building the more finished proportions of a classical triumphal arch.

“Without its top, the Arch of Titus looks like it’s missing something,” Higgins said, adding, “When you have a really strong base like this to work with, it can support a foil.”

The building’s ornate beaux-arts industrial expressionist architecture does make a strong impression. Combining exposed rivets and industrial elements with classical geometry and organization, it is typical of New York ferry terminals from its period.

But Higgins’ arguments met with skepticism from Community Board 1, which will take up the complicated plan again this month before voting on a final recommendation to the Landmarks Commission. Landmarks Committee chair Roger Byrom described the design as “a beautiful building destroyed.”

“To have this building taller than the Staten Island Ferry is a real problem for me,” he said. “This is a massive addition.”

Benjamin countered that the size of the addition was necessary to make the renovation make financial sense.

“We have to spend a fortune to make this work,” he said, citing the project’s $150 million cost. “We have to find the economics to balance that.”

Other CB1 members had doubts about the wisdom of planning any traffic-intensive use in a location where circulation is already bad. “I can’t think of a worse place in the city for a hotel and a Cipriani-type place,” Marc Ameruso said. “Traffic is terrible there.”

Julie Nadel, chairwoman of the Waterfront Committee, worried that the second-floor space could have trouble drawing the public up off the street. “I’m concerned that this is going to just be a really nice lobby for the hotel,” she said.

Landmarks Preservation Commissioner Pablo Vengoechea asked similar questions on Oct. 23.

“Are these really going to be public spaces or just spaces for the hotel?” he asked. “From the indications of the plan they seem like very private spaces.”

Commissioners also questioned the size and design of the addition. Commissioner Roberta Washington said it would look like a “marquis” from the water side.

Nadezhda Williams, representing the Historic Districts Council, said her organization is  opposed to the proposal.

“This is rather like a spaceship sitting on top of the building,” she said. “It is over-scaled and insensitive to the original design. After all the work that went into this, it would be a shame to see it smothered. Is this really any way to treat a landmark?”

[Home][Back][Search] [Advertise][Contact]
The Tribeca Trib · 401 Broadway, 5th Floor · New York, NY · 10013 · 212.219.9709