CityRealty: New and Noteworthy

Demolition starts for 18-story condo building at 123 Third Avenue

08-MAY-08

Orange Management Inc., of which Andrew Bradfield is a principal, has started demolition of a two-story building at 123 Third Avenue on the southeast corner at 14th Street where it plans to erect an 18-story condominium apartment building.

Perkins Eastman is the architect.

The building will have 45 apartments.

The building is across the avenue from the recently completed, 21-story 110 Third Avenue apartment building on the former site of the historic Variety Arts Theater between 13th and 14th Streets.

Orange Management is also developing the 12-story apartment building at 22 Renwick Street between Greenwich and Hudson Streets that has been designed by Philip Johnson Alan Ritchie and Garrett Gourlay.

The property, which also has an address of 200-204 West 14th Street, was acquired earlier this year for about $17.5 million from Danrose LLC and 123 Third Avenue Realty LLC.

A rendering, shown at the right, of part of the tower's facade on the developer's website indicate that it will have a sleek facade with horizontal banding and small protrusions.

The site is close to Union Square Park and excellent public transportation.

Swig plans 650-foot-high mixed-use tower at 45 Broad Street

08-MAY-08

Swig Equities is planning to erect a 650-foot-high, mixed-use tower at 45 Broad Street in the Financial District that will contain 77 residential condominium apartments on floors 41 to 62, a 128- room hotel and about 13,000 square feet of retail space on the ground level and second floor with a Nobu restaurant on the third floor, according to an article by Branden Keil in today's edition of The New York Post.

The site is on the same street as 25 Broad Street that Swig Equities has converted to residential condominiums.

In April, 2007, Swig Equities obtained permission from the Landmarks Preservation Commission to demolish a rear wing at 25 Broad Street. The demolition cut off the top 20 stories of the 21-story wing, removing about 17 percent of the building's mass and 36 apartments. The wing extends to the south from the middle of the building and extends into the middle of the block and is not very visible because of nearby high-rise buildings including a new residential tower under construction at 15 William Street. Swig Equities planned to use the cut-off mass, which would amount to about 80,000 square feet, at 45 Broad Street. The transfer would add about 12 stories to the 35-story building that was then planned for the site.

25 Broad Street is a 21-story building that was the world's largest building when it was completed in 1902. Located on the southeast corner of Broad Street and Exchange Place, it is one block south of the New York Stock Exchange. It was designed in 1899 by Robert Maynicke and his plans were revised the next year by Clinton & Russell.

The building is distinguished by its very handsome facade and entrance and its stunning and huge lobby. It has a three-story rusticated base with a five-step-up entrance. In their wonderful book, "The A.I.A. Guide to New York City, Fourth Edition" (Three Rivers Press, 2000), Elliot Willensky and Norval White observed that the building is "worthy of the best on Park Avenue." In fact, the building predates most of the buildings on Park Avenue and its huge marble lobby with coffered ceiling is worthy of the world's most luxurious hotels.

According to the Skyscraper Museum, the building remained the world's largest building from 1902 to 1907 when it was surpassed in size by the City Investing Building. When it was completed, the "Broad Exchange Building," as it was known, was "the largest and most valuable office building in all of Manhattan" and, according to the Swig Equities's website, "was instantly recognized as one of the most desirable addresses for Wall Street's brokers and bankers, providing headquarter facilities for Paine, Webber and Company for nearly seventy years."

The building was converted from an office building in 1997 by Crescent Heights to 346 rental apartments. The building had been vacant for several years after the stock market crash of 1987. Mr. Swig acquired the building from Crescent Heights in 2005 for about $200 million.

The site at 45 Broad Street was once occupied by the firm of Joseph Meeks & Sons, one of American's most prominent furniture makers in the mid-18th Century, and more recently by an 8-story commercial building that Swig Equities has demolished.

Moed de Armas & Shannon are the design architects and SLCE is the architect of record for the new tower for which the Rockwell Group is designing the interiors.

The new tower, Mr. Keil wrote, adding that it will include a health club and pool for the use of both the residents and the hotel guests and a sun terrace, and partners in the project include Robert De Niro, Nobu Matsuhisa, Richie Notar and Meir Teper and Drew Nieporent.

The published rendering indicated that building's north and west facades will be curved above a six-story base that holds to the street wall. Although the architectural context of Broad Street in this area is masonry, the new tower will be clad in blue glass.

Calatrava project at Ground Zero revised

08-MAY-08

The design of the "aesthetic centerpiece" of the redevelopment at Ground Zero, a transportation hub and PATH terminal designed by Santiago Calatrava to resemble a bird ascending in flight, has been revised to try to keep it within its $2.5 billion budget.

In an article in today's edition of The New York Times, David W. Dunlap said that the street-level perimeter of the "aesthetic centerpiece" is being reduced by 10 to 15 percent, skylights have been eliminated from the terminal's below-ground mezzanine and standard concrete will be substituted for architectural concrete in the mezzanine's ceiling girders.

The article indicated that "more substantial revisions may be needed if no contractor can be found to build the project for $2.5 billion" and bids will be invited next month.

Anthony J. Sartor, chairman of the trade center redevelopment committee of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey said in the article that the project will retain its "signature 'winged' design" and that it will be "completed and functioning in 2011."

Mr. Dunlap said that Mr. Calatrava's office released a statement yesterday in which he said that he believes "we have made the design better in many, many ways, through this exercise."

Mr. Calatrava, who was given a major retrospective exhibition recently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is international celebrated for the poetic and lyrical design of many of his bridge projects and other designs. A couple of years ago, he designed a skyscraper for 80 South Street that would have stacked 10 four-story residential cubes, a design that was widely praised and anticipated. That project, however, has not advanced.

Planned rezoning of Lower East Side and East Village advances

07-MAY-08

The Department of City Planning this week certified into the city's Uniform Land Use Review Process a proposed rezoning for a large part of the Lower East Side and the East Village.

The area affected by the proposed zoning is bounded by the north side of East 13th Street, the west side of Avenue D, the north side of Houston Street, the west side of Pitt Street, the north side of Delancey Street, the east side of Essex Street, the north side of Grand Street and 100 feet in from the east side of the Bowery and 100 feet in from the west side of Third Avenue.

The rezoning would affect about 111 blocks are included in the area and eliminate bonuses for dormitories and hotels. Most of the area would be downzoned although Houston, Delancey and Chrystie streets would be upzoned.

According to the planning department, the intent of the rezoning is "o preserve the low- to mid-rise character of the East Village and Lower East Side neighborhoods while concentrating new development towards specific corridors that are more suited for new residential construction with incentives for affordable housing." The objective of the rezoning, according to the department, is to "protect the low- to mid-rise streetwall that characterizes much of the project area; address the community's request for contextual zoning; reinforce use of several avenues as corridors for mixed retail/residential buildings; provide opportunities for housing development and incentives for affordable housing along selected wide streets and major corridors; and protect existing commercial uses in proposed R8B districts."

The department identified 205 projected development sites and 565 potential development sites. A "reasonable worst-case development scenario" (RWCDS) projected that the actions "could result in a net increase of 1,383 residential units (including 23 enlargements), 348 of which would be affordable, and a net decrease of 74,439 square feet of commercial space on the projected development sites compared to conditions in the future without the proposed actions."

According to the draft environment impact statement for the rezoning, the "proposed actions would not directly displace any public open spaces, and with the exception of the Orchard Alley community garden, which would be effected by incremental shadows cast by new buildings as part of the RWCDS, study area open spaces would not be impacted by shadows, air quality, or noise as a result of the proposed actions."

The proposed actions, the statement continued, "could result in significantly adverse direct impacts on up to fifteen known architectural resources and on up to twenty-four potential architectural resources."

A May 5, 2008 article by Lysandra Ohrstrom in the on-line edition of The New York Observeer said that Josephine Lee, spokeswoman of the Coalition to Protect Chinatown and the Lower East Side said that the boundaries of the proposed rezoning discriminate against the Chinese and Hispanic populations represented by Community Board 3 living south of Delancey and east of Avenue D.

Standards and Appeals denies appeal of Trump SoHo permit

06-MAY-08

The New York City Board of Standards and Appeals voted unanimously today to deny an appeal of the issuance of permits by the Department of Buildings for the construction of the Trump International Hotel SoHo at 246 Spring Street.

The appeal had been brought by the SoHo Alliance and supported by the Greenwich Village society for Historic Preservation. They contended the permits should not have been issued because the development, they claimed, violates the area's zoning that allows transient hotels but not condo-hotel residences.

Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation Executive Director Andrew Berman and SoHo Alliance Director Sean Sweeney issued the following joint statement in response to the decision:

"We are disappointed but not surprised that the BSA, which is composed entirely of Mayoral appointees, has decided to uphold the ruling of its scandal-plagued sister agency, the Department of Buildings. In over 90 percent of appeals cases such as these, the BSA has ruled to uphold decisions of the Department of Buildings. The cumbersome and time-consuming BSA procedure is legally required before a challenge can be heard in court, rather than before an agency of Mayoral appointees."

"The court of public opinion," their statement continued, "is already squarely opposed to this ill-conceived project. With this ruling the case can be brought to the NY State Supreme Court, and that is what is now being planned by the SoHo Alliance....There has already been plenty of tragedy from the Trump SoHo construction; enough is enough. It's time to pull the permits for this disastrous project."

The critics of the project have maintained that the "restrictive declaration" that the City signed with the developers to supposedly ensure the building would conform to zoning restrictions on residential uses was unenforceable and a "fig leaf, intended to try to cover up the city's violation of its own rules and regulations."

"Trump and partners," the statement said, "were caught numerous times advertising the project as a residence, and a New York Magazine investigation in March found that prospective buyers at the Trump SoHo Condo-Hotel were directed as to how to get around the supposed prohibition on residential uses."

"While much of the structure is currently built," the statement said, "a successful legal appeal could still have several important effects. A ruling finding that a condo-hotel such as the Trump SoHo violates zoning rules in the area could result in the building being completely or partially dismantled, or, more likely, require the developer to seek a zoning change, which would allow the public to affect the size and height of an allowable development. The developer could also change the planned project from a condo-hotel to a straight hotel, which would likely discourage other developers from attempting similar projects under the existing zoning rules."

In addition to the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation and the SoHo Alliance, the appeal was joined by the numerous organizations such as the Municipal Art Society, the Greenwich Village Community Task Force, the TriBeCa Community Association, the Council of Chelsea Block Associations, the Hell's Kitchen Neighborhood Association, Community Boards 1 and 5 in Manhattan, the Garment Center Industrial Development Corporation, and Tony Avella, chairman of the zoning committee of the New York City Council.

The building, which is still in construction, is already visible from midtown looking south on the Avenue of the Americas. If completed, it will be 454 feet high and contain 410 hotel condominium units and three suites and be the tallest building between 22nd Street and the Civic Center in Lower Manhattan.

The property is being developed by Bayrock/Sapir LLC, a partnership of the Bayrock Group, Tamir Sapir and Donald Trump.

Landmarks Commission rejects St. Vincent's expansion plan

06-MAY-08

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission found the expansion plans of St. Vincent's Hospital in Greenwich Village inappropriate and told it today to go back to the drawing boards.

The hospital wants to erect a new, 21-story, hospital building designed by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners new building on the site of the nautically-styled Edward and Theresa O'Toole Medical Services building on the northwest corner of 12th Street and Seventh Avenue and it wants to demolish nine of its existing buildings on the east side of Seventh Avenue between 11th and 12th Streets where Rudin Family Holdings wants to develop about 500 housing units in a 21-story building on the avenue designed by FXFowle and townhouses with stoops on the two side streets. The FXFowle plan is shown at the right.

The sites are in the Greenwich Village Historic District.

A coalition of neighborhood organizations had proposed an "alternative" plan that would lower the height of the proposed new hospital building from about 330 feet to about 190 feet and called for a second new hospital building on the east side of the avenue that might be connected to the one on the west side by a tunnel.

On February 20, 2008, Henry Amoroso, president and CEO of Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers, wrote to Community Board 2, whose committee on the plans unanimously voted in opposition to them, that the hospital had reviewed the "alternative" plan and found that it "is not feasible and lacks the tools necessary to ensure that this community has proper healthy care infrastructure."

"The existing hospital assemblage...has so many significant architectural, mechanical, and structural systems issues that no amount of renovation work can satisfy the demands of 21st Century healthcare," he wrote, adding that the alternative plan "divorces inpatient beds from emergency, surgical, and imaging services, violates health policy, would not receive Certificate of Need approval from the New York State Department of Health, and would cause a complete shutdown of hospital operations during demolition and reconstruction."

The hospital is the only trauma center on the West Side from the Battery to 59th Street.

The architecture critic of The New York Times, Nicolai Ouroussoff, has criticized as "most troubling" the hospital's plan to tear down "the 1963 O'Toole Building, one of the first buildings in the city to break with the Modernist mainstream as it was congealing into formulaic dogma."

"Designed by the New Orleans architect Albert C. Ledner, it is significant," Mr. Ouroussoff wrote. "It was built to house the National Maritime Union," he wrote, and "its glistening white facade and scalloped overhangs, boldly cantilevered over the lower floors, were meant to conjure an ocean voyage....Its glass brick base, once the site of union halls, suggests an urban aquarium."

Andrew Berman, the executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, told CityRealty.com today that the commission "told the hospital that most of the proposed demolitions were completely unacceptable and that the proposed new buildings were massively out-of-scale for the neighborhood and inappropriate in their designs."

"Today," Mr. Berman said, "the City roundly rejected this unprecedented plan which would have so severely damaged the character of one of the city's oldest historic districts."

Mr. Berman said that some of the commissioners called for preservation of the O'Toole building and several said they would be open to a hospital tower on top, albeit a smaller one than currently proposed.

Mr. Amoroso issued a statement after the meeting that said the hospital "will move forward with a hardship application" to demolish the O'Toole building, adding that "The reality is that the O'Toole site is the only location where we can build a fully efficient, state-of-the-art green hospital."

Gehry redesigns Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn

05-MAY-08

Frank O. Gehry has redesigned the controversial Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn for Forest City Ratner.

The new design, which was published in an article by Jonathan Sederstrom in today's edition of the Daily News, is shorter, more complex, and more sharply delineated than his prior design that seemed to be partially screened with sheaths.

The previous design was known as "Miss Brooklyn" and would have risen 620 feet. The new design is now referred to as B1 and is planned to rise 511 feet, in keeping with a plan announced last December to keep it shorter than the 512-foot-high former Williamsburgh Savings Bank tower that has been Brooklyn's most visible landmark for decades.

The new design is a much more coherent and cohesive scheme that resembles little metallic boxes staggeringly stacked and angled. The tower will now be exclusively offices rather than condominium apartments, the article said.

Mr. Sederstrom's article quoted Mr. Gehry as stating that "My enthusiasm for Atlantic Yards has grown and grown until arriving at our current design, which works better with the surrounding area than it ever had before." The tower, he continued, "has been slimmed down and has become more festive."

The article said that a red-and-pink, 340-foot-high tower will be completed first with 350 market-rate and affordable rental apartments.

The new renderings showed only three buildings while previous ones indicated 16.

Mr. Gehry, who designed the swirling metallic forms of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao to international acclaim in 1997, is also the architect for Forest City Ratner of a major mixed-use tower at 8 Spruce Street near City Hall in Lower Manhattan. Renderings of that project that were released more than a year ago indicated it would be clad in silver-colored facade with a great many setbacks, and rumors have abounded on the Internet recently that a revised design for that project, which is now starting to "come out of the ground," is anticipated shortly.

Earlier this year, Forest City Ratner indicated that it may not proceed all at once with its ambitious plans for the 22-acred Atlantic Yards that included an arena for The New Jersey Nets, a basketball team, several thousand apartments and some commercial buildings and that it may initially only start on the arena. In an op-ed article in yesterday's Daily News, however, Bruce Ratner maintained that "the project is moving ahead in its entirety."

An article by Rich Calder in today's edition of The New York Post showed a "worst-case scenario" rendering of how the Atlantic Yards project could look - and remain for many years - should the developer continue facing massive delays."

The rendering, showing an arena and "temporary" parking lots, was prepared for the Municipal Art Society by "a prominent architecture team - that wishes to remain anonymous - to dramatize the impact on the project on the surrounding neighborhood and to bet the state to rethink its approval."

The article quoted Kent Barwick, the president of the Municipal Art Society, as stating that "we're concerned that, because the project can only be built when the market is ready, the area will be blighted with parking and vacant lots until then."

More details on van Berkel's dramatic TriBeCa project

29-APR-08

More details about the dramatic, 20-story residential condominium apartment building planned by Sleepy Hudson LLC at Five Franklin Place and designed by Ben van Berkel of UN Studio have been released.

The mid-block, 55-unit building extends through the block to 371 Broadway between White and Franklin Streets in TriBeCa.

A press release issued today provided the following commentary on the project:

"The building will be wrapped in an optically dazzling, constantly shifting pattern of horizontal black metal bands sewn onto its form the way decorative seams and pleats are sewn onto a luxurious couture garment. A direct homage to the applied metal facade decoration of TriBeCa's celebrated 19th Century cast iron architecture, these gleaming reflective ribbons will grow thinner and thicker, wrapping the entire tower and moving softly around corners to give the whole structure an etched effect and curvilinear softness, while reflecting the evolving light of day, the clouds and the colors of the city in one of the most dramatic compositions attempted in modern Manhattan's recent building boom."

"Thanks to strategic twisting and torquing," it continued, "his facade bands will serve as essential functional elements of the tower as well, transforming into balconies for more than half of the building's residences, terraces for the penthouses at the top, and sunshades that deflect heat and protect all of the structures interiors from excess sunlight....The horizontal and mutable qualities of van Berkel's facade bands have been brought inside and translated into broad horizontal spatial arrangements; carefully placed curved walls that echo the soft corners of the ribbons outside and shift to allow for maximum flexibility in the use of rooms; balconies shaped to loop residents' movements back indoors; and highly-engineered, custom features and fixtures for kitchens and bathrooms designed by van Berkel and fabricated by renowned design manufacturer B&B Italia....Bathrooms, for example, will have circular sliding doors so that baths can become part of bedrooms and share the same views - and to introduce an alternative to the now standardized rectilinear interiors of contemporary condominium architecture in New York City."

The apartments will range in size from about 1,200 to about 3,400 square feet and prices will range from $2 million to $16 million,

The lobby will have sliding doors, 24 hour doorman and a "sparkling violet glass-chip floor," and a "sweeping curved stairwell" to a sub-grade level spa and fitness center with a "daylight flooded, double-height weight room."

On floors 2 through 7, Loft Residences will have 20-foot-high living rooms and "floating upper level mezzaines at the center of the floor plan." On floors 8 through 18, City Residences will have paved terraces on the east and west sides of the building. Three duplex penthouses will have terraces, fireplaces, and cylindrical glass elevators wrapped by a curved, cantilevered floating staircase.

Sleepy Hudson LLC, of which Leo Tsimmer and David Kislin are principals, developed the recently completed High Line 519 residential condominium building at 519 West 23rd Street that was designed by Lindy Roy and is notable for its cloud-like scrim balconies.

UN Studio was founded in 1998 by Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos and, according to its website, its projects include the Battersea Weave Office Building in London, the Light*House in Aarhus, Denmark, the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuggart, Germany, the Groninger Forum in Groningen, The Netherlands, the World Business Centre in Busan, South Korea, and the Ciudad del Motor in Alcaniz, Aragon, Spain.

In 1998, van Berkel designed the Mobius House in Het Gooi, The Netherlands, which illustrated his belief, the press release stated, "that orthodoxies exist to be challenged, including the increasingly stale tropes of glass-sheathed, square box Modernism."

Tudor City residents file suit against Solow's First Avenue project

24-APR-08

Some residents of 5 Tudor Place at Tudor City, the housing enclave across First Avenue from the United Nations announced yesterday a lawsuit to block construction of Sheldon H. Solow's redevelopment of the former Con Edison properties nearby along First Avenue.

The City Council recently approved revised Solow's plans for the project that will include about 3,000 apartments, 1 million square feet of commercial space, a new school, about 69,000-square feet of retail space and open space.

According to an article by David Freedlander in today's edition of AM-NY, "The suit alleges that the City Council and the City Planning Commission approved developer Sheldon Solow's $4 billion plan for the former Con Ed site on the East River against the stated wishes of the local community board."

The article quoted Edan Untereman, president of the East Midtown Coalition as stating that "The planning commission says they are interested in community-based planning, but it's pure bunk," adding that "They have been arrogant from beginning to end. It is very important to people to have a say in how their neighborhood looks and whether or not developers can come in and change it."

Residents of the complex, which was developed by Fred F. French between 40th and 43rd Streets and First and Second Avenues between 1925 and 1928, allege, according to the article, that the planning commission "arbitrarily and capriciously" disregarded the community's plan for while "publicly extolling the benefits of community-based planning."

The article quoted Evelyn Konrad, the lawyer bringing the suit, as saying that "The planning department pays lip service to community-based planning and then they spit in the face of community based planning." "We spent all these years with all these city agencies trying to set up guidelines about how this area should be," her quotation continued, "and then a decision gets made hastily and in private that sets it all aside."

Vivian Gilbert, the president of the board of directors of 5 Tudor Place, told Mr. Freedlander, that Harry B. Helmsley was thwarted in his plan more than a generation ago to build towers in the park spaces of the complex that straddles 42nd Street by "old women lying down in front of trucks," adding that "People really care for this area, and they don't want to see it ruined," she said.

In their excellent book, "The A. I. A. Guide to New York City Architecture, Fourth Edition," Norval White and Elliot Willensky described Tudor City as "an ambitious private renewal effort that included 12 buildings (3,000 apartments and 600 hotel rooms) along its own street....Everything faced in, toward the private open space and away from the surrounding tenements, slaughterhouses, and generating plants. As a result, almost windowless walls now face the United Nations."

NYU's expansion plans in Village attacked

24-APR-08

New York University yesterday presented more details of its expansion plans and an article by Albert Amateau in today's edition of The Villager disclosed that the university presented plans to the Community Task Force it has been meeting with recently that it intends to demolish four 4-story buildings at 131-9 MacDougal Street that contain the historic Provincetown Playhouse and replace it with a slightly larger building.

The disclosure of the plans for the playhouse, which is not an official city landmark, shocked some preservationists and will be presented May 28 before the institutions committee of Community Board 2.

"The plan to demolish one of the most historic sites in all of the Village and all of New York city, in all the history of theater - the former home of Eugene O'Neill and Edna St. Vincent Millay - is totally wrong-headed," Andrew Berman, the executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation told CityRealty.com today.

"There is simply no reason to demolish this wonderful historic building just to replace it with a new and slightly larger building; worse, it goes against the same 'planning principles' NYU agreed to which says the University will 'prioritize re-use before new development.' It also belies their statement of support for the proposed South Village Historic District, which includes the Playhouse," Mr. Berman declared.

Mr. Berman also described the university's proposed addition of a fourth and larger tower to the Silver Towers complex, also known as University Village, designed by I. M. Pei on the north side of Houston Street between La Guardia Place and Wooster Street as "preposterous; it is an affront to the existing design."

He said that the university was still "talking about adding up to 3.6 million square feet of new space in and around their main campus over the next 23 years" that he said would be "the equivalent of all the new NYU buildings built in the area over the last 42 years; this is a frightening and overwhelming amount, and it would seem to indicate a near-doubling in the university's rate of expansion, not a decrease as they have tried to suggest."

One of the plans the university is considering calls for a "zipper loft" building redevelopment of its large but low Coles Gymnasium building along Mercer Street. The proposed mid-rise building would have staggered box-like buildings for academic or residential use with some variation in building height rising over a low rise base on the full block between Mercer and Wooster Streets and Houston and Bleecker Streets.

The university is also considering filling in the large open space between the colorful twin slabs of the Washington Square Village complex. Its presentation noted that it has studied a "grid restoration project, an alternative that could be explored beyond the year 2031, is not an option for the foreseeable future but may make programmatic and financial sense at some more distant point" for the Washington Square Village site, adding that it has "heard" "some people strongly opposed the potential demolition of Washington Square Village," which is probably the city's foremost example of "tower-in-the-park" planning.

The university's "plinth and tower" plan for Washington Square Village would add a one- to two-level plinth between the two Washington Square Village buildings and new underground space and the open space could be "book-ended" by a pavilion building on LaGuardia Place and a tower on Mercer Street. Renderings indicated the tower would be angled on the site and rise considerably higher than the two existing slab buildings. "Open space on the plinth's roof could be publicly accessible from gently sloping ramps off LaGuardia and Mercer," it said.

The glass-clad, "pinwheel tower" proposed for University Village would be taller than the existing three towers but the university's preservation maintained that it would not obstruct their views.