City Council approves scaling down Nouvel's mixed-use tower near MoMA

The City Council was reported to have voted 44 to 3 today to approve plans for a 1,050-foot-high, mixed-use tower that will include expansion space for the Museum of Modern Art, which is on the same block.

The City Planning Commission recently approved various permits for the building involving transfer of air rights to the project from the University Club and the St. Thomas Episcopal Church on the same block but ordered that its height be reduced from 1,250 feet.

The council's land use committee recently approved the commission's decision despite pleas from the developer, Hines Interests, and its architect, Jean Nouvel, to not lop off the top 200-feet of the mid-block tapering tower with diagonal bracing.

The very thin, asymmetrical tower would not only contain significant expansion space for the museum, which received $125 million from Hines for the site, but also a luxury hotel and about 150 residential condominiums.

At one point, the tower was supposed to have 85 stories and some reports today maintained that the plan approved today was 82 stories but no new renderings have been made public and the loss of 100,000 square feet from the original proposal of 658,000 square feet would suggest that the tower's design would be substantially altered and made squatter.

The decision by the City Planning Commission was surprising and not widely embraced.

In an article in The New York Times, Nicholai Ouroussoff wrote that "Amanda Burden, the city planning commissioner, said the tower's top, which culminates in three uneven peaks, did not meet the aesthetic standards of a building that would compete in height with the city's most famous towers." He said that Ms. Burden said that the project "had to show us that they were creating something as great or even greater than the Empire State Building and the design they showed us was unresolved.'"

Citing its "legant proportions," Mr. Ourossoff wrote that "seen from the street, its receding facades would have induced a delicious sense of vertigo."

In his October 6, 2009 testimony before the council's subcommittee on zoning and franchises, Assemblyman Richard N. Gottfried argued that "a building of this magnitude on a mid-block location immediately adjacent to a historic residential neighborhood violates the basic principles of New York City zoning and good urban planning."

He maintained that the St. Thomas Church, which wanted to sell 275,000 square feet of its air rights, "should do what congregations do, and turn to its members." He also maintained that the University Club, which wanted to sell Hines 136,000 square feet of air rights, "also falls short of demonstrating financial need."

"Neither landmark is in danger of deterioration, or has a stated lack of resources," he declared, adding that "there is substantial public burden resulting from the excessive height and density, shadows, traffic, and other impacts the proposed tower will impose on the community."

Hines has not indicated what it plans to do with the site in view of the council's action and market conditions.