Community Board 7 voted 36 to 2 last night to not approve Extell Development's plans to redevelop an 8-acre parking lot site, shown at the right, on the Upper West Side unless the developer accepts its proposed modifications.
Extell wants to erect five towers with about 2,500 apartments, a 250-room hotel, a garage for 1,800 cars, a 208,000-square-foot retail/office/auto showroom, a 37,000-square-foot cinema center, and the "shell" for a k-8 school. Its plan, which has been designed by Christian de Portzamparc, is known as Riverside Center and is just to the north of the large "Powerhouse" building on 59th Street.
The resolution passed by the board called upon the developer to eliminate one of the five towers to create more public open space and increase its affordable housing commitment for the project from 12 percent to 30 percent and make it permanent rather than just 20 years.
The Community Board also wants the developer to fully fund the construction of a school twice the size of the "shell" it has proposed.
The board has described the plan's public space as "not welcoming, accessible, or useful and was critical of the fact that its proposed school facility would have no ground level yard and "creates density that will stress infrastructure, services, public amenities, and environment."
According to an article today by Sam Levin at observer.com, the meeting lasted about four hours and "one major sticking point was the potential, and likely expensive, relocation of Miller Highway underground."
The group eventually agreed, the article continued, "to recommend that the developer make a substantial contribution to potential future highway reconfiguration."
The article noted that the developer's representative at the meeting, George Arzt, distributed a statement that said that "While we recognize the Board's hard work, they clearly do not recognize the difficulty in developing projects in this uniquely challenging economic environment. However, this is just the beginning of a long process. We look forward to the next round of the process."
The article said that Mr. Arzt said that the board did not "prioritize" its requests and "gave equal weight to...items, without any sense of what they cost."
The site in question is the last large parcel of property that Extell acquired from Donald Trump who began the residential development of Riverside Boulevard to extend Riverside Park south from 72nd Street to 59th Street. Extell has already developed several apartment buildings just to the north of the parking lot.
As part of the city's Uniform Land Use Review Process (ULURP), the Extell proposal now will be reviewed by the Borough President, then the City Planning Commission and finally the City Council.
Extell wants to erect five towers with about 2,500 apartments, a 250-room hotel, a garage for 1,800 cars, a 208,000-square-foot retail/office/auto showroom, a 37,000-square-foot cinema center, and the "shell" for a k-8 school. Its plan, which has been designed by Christian de Portzamparc, is known as Riverside Center and is just to the north of the large "Powerhouse" building on 59th Street.
The resolution passed by the board called upon the developer to eliminate one of the five towers to create more public open space and increase its affordable housing commitment for the project from 12 percent to 30 percent and make it permanent rather than just 20 years.
The Community Board also wants the developer to fully fund the construction of a school twice the size of the "shell" it has proposed.
The board has described the plan's public space as "not welcoming, accessible, or useful and was critical of the fact that its proposed school facility would have no ground level yard and "creates density that will stress infrastructure, services, public amenities, and environment."
According to an article today by Sam Levin at observer.com, the meeting lasted about four hours and "one major sticking point was the potential, and likely expensive, relocation of Miller Highway underground."
The group eventually agreed, the article continued, "to recommend that the developer make a substantial contribution to potential future highway reconfiguration."
The article noted that the developer's representative at the meeting, George Arzt, distributed a statement that said that "While we recognize the Board's hard work, they clearly do not recognize the difficulty in developing projects in this uniquely challenging economic environment. However, this is just the beginning of a long process. We look forward to the next round of the process."
The article said that Mr. Arzt said that the board did not "prioritize" its requests and "gave equal weight to...items, without any sense of what they cost."
The site in question is the last large parcel of property that Extell acquired from Donald Trump who began the residential development of Riverside Boulevard to extend Riverside Park south from 72nd Street to 59th Street. Extell has already developed several apartment buildings just to the north of the parking lot.
As part of the city's Uniform Land Use Review Process (ULURP), the Extell proposal now will be reviewed by the Borough President, then the City Planning Commission and finally the City Council.
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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