Downtown Alliance to Put Green in Lower Greenwich St.

A dreary section of Greenwich Street is about to get some green.

The Downtown Alliance plans to install 25 rectangular planters on the three long blocks between Edgar and Albany streets. The trees and flowers, to be installed in May, will provide what the Alliance is describing as a “vibrancy of colors throughout the seasons and a good survivability rate.”

“The project goal was to create a sense of connectivity along Greenwich Street South and to enliven the streetscape,” Fred Sham, a planning director for the Downtown Alliance, told Community Board 1’s Planning Committee last month.

Most of the trees will be “low-level,” so that views from residents’ apartments, and of storefronts won’t be blocked, Sham said.

While embarking on the program, the Alliance said, it solicited the opinions of a few dozen property owners and building managers.

The project is based on a study the Alliance completed in 2009 about the viability of “Greenwich South,” an area it defines as Downtown’s estimated 41 acres south of the World Trade Center.

The city Department of Transportation, on behalf of the Alliance, is submitting the trees plan for final approval to the Public Design Com mission in March. The commission has already signed off on the project’s conceptual design.