Brookfield Properties presented its plans to replace the grand staircase in the Winter Garden at the World Financial Center in Battery Park City with a large glass pavilion with two inverted cone support structures and a bank of escalators to a tunnel under West Street last night to a meeting of Community Board 1.
The removal of the large and very handsome staircase would "expand the palm tree-studded Winter Garden by 30 percent," according to an article by Julie Shapiro today at DNAinfo.com.
"Brookfield also plans to create a two-level market and 714-seat food court in the retail space just south of the Winter Garden, with cafes and test kitchens by the city's top restaurateurs," the article said.
"Brookfield plans to tear down the building's Grand Staircase to make way for the floods of commuters expected once the World Trade Center site is complete," the article continued, adding that it "hopes to turn the Battery Park City office complex into a restaurant and retail destination by the middle of 2013."
David Cheikin, vice president of leasing for Brookfield, told the meeting that he "hopes to revive the Financial Center's sleepy, underutilized retail by serving local residents in addition to office workers."
Brookfield executives said that if the stairs stay in place, "they would create a choke point by blocking the exit of the new pedestrian tunnel beneath West Street, scheduled to open by the end of 2012," the article said.
"Many Battery Park City residents strongly object to demolishing the Grand Staircase, which was rebuilt after 9/11 and has since become a place of community gathering. City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden also wants to preserve the stairs. 'We like those stairs, too,' Lawrence Graham, a Brookfield vice president, told CB1 Monday. 'We wish we could have found something different. Obviously, it would have been cheaper for us.'"
In an article by Eliot Brown in yesterday's edition of The Wall Street Journal, Linda Belfer, chair of the Battery Park City committee of Community Board 1 said that "People walked up on the bridge to go from the Trade Center to the World Financial Center and the staircase at that point served as a monumental entrance," adding that "much of the community is concerned about it."
"'People that are coming into the World Financial Center for the first time,' the article continued, will be entering the complex from the street level - that's basically the new reality that we've had to deal with,' says Ric Clark, Brookfield's CEO. Having the bulk of commuters come through the existing entrance, keeping the stairs in tact is 'not appropriate, and it's not safe,' he added. 'Had this new reality been in existence at the onset, the complex wouldn't have been designed with steps,' he says."
The removal of the large and very handsome staircase would "expand the palm tree-studded Winter Garden by 30 percent," according to an article by Julie Shapiro today at DNAinfo.com.
"Brookfield also plans to create a two-level market and 714-seat food court in the retail space just south of the Winter Garden, with cafes and test kitchens by the city's top restaurateurs," the article said.
"Brookfield plans to tear down the building's Grand Staircase to make way for the floods of commuters expected once the World Trade Center site is complete," the article continued, adding that it "hopes to turn the Battery Park City office complex into a restaurant and retail destination by the middle of 2013."
David Cheikin, vice president of leasing for Brookfield, told the meeting that he "hopes to revive the Financial Center's sleepy, underutilized retail by serving local residents in addition to office workers."
Brookfield executives said that if the stairs stay in place, "they would create a choke point by blocking the exit of the new pedestrian tunnel beneath West Street, scheduled to open by the end of 2012," the article said.
"Many Battery Park City residents strongly object to demolishing the Grand Staircase, which was rebuilt after 9/11 and has since become a place of community gathering. City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden also wants to preserve the stairs. 'We like those stairs, too,' Lawrence Graham, a Brookfield vice president, told CB1 Monday. 'We wish we could have found something different. Obviously, it would have been cheaper for us.'"
In an article by Eliot Brown in yesterday's edition of The Wall Street Journal, Linda Belfer, chair of the Battery Park City committee of Community Board 1 said that "People walked up on the bridge to go from the Trade Center to the World Financial Center and the staircase at that point served as a monumental entrance," adding that "much of the community is concerned about it."
"'People that are coming into the World Financial Center for the first time,' the article continued, will be entering the complex from the street level - that's basically the new reality that we've had to deal with,' says Ric Clark, Brookfield's CEO. Having the bulk of commuters come through the existing entrance, keeping the stairs in tact is 'not appropriate, and it's not safe,' he added. 'Had this new reality been in existence at the onset, the complex wouldn't have been designed with steps,' he says."
Architecture Critic
Carter Horsley
Since 1997, Carter B. Horsley has been the editorial director of CityRealty. He began his journalistic career at The New York Times in 1961 where he spent 26 years as a reporter specializing in real estate & architectural news. In 1987, he became the architecture critic and real estate editor of The New York Post.
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