The Board of Standards & Appeals held its first hearing last evening on an application for variances to permit the construction of a handsome, 11-story residential condominium building at 482 Greenwich Street on the northwest corner at Canal Street.

Red Brick Canal LLC is the developer. It had acquired the site from Arman, the artist who recently died and had maintained an outdoor studio on an irregular, triangular-shaped lot at the address.

The project is seeking to increase the permissible floor-to-area ratio (F.A.R.) from 6.02 to 7.98, get permission for 100 percent lot coverage because only 80 percent is now allowed, and increase the street-wall height from the permissible 85 feet on Canal Street to about 111 feet.

The F.A.R. is a formula that computes the ratio of allowable indoor square footage to the building's footprint square footage.

Thomas McKay and Garrett Gourlay are the architects for the project that will employ a synthetic light-colored material as piers on Canal Street, where its height will match that of an adjoining red-brick building to the west, and a glass fa?ade with inset balconies on the east fa?ade on Greenwich Street.

Much of last night?s hearing centered on the developer?s ?hardship? problems relating to irregular lot size, noise and air pollution, and contaminated soil conditions.

Deirdre Carlson of Greenberg Traurig, who was representing the developer, said that the project?s proximity to heavy traffic requires triple glazing of the windows and the need to bring fresh air for air-conditioning from the roof. She said that the building?s sellable square foot ?efficiency was only 63 percent.?

Construction costs, she added, have climbed about 10 percent in the last year. James Chin, one of the board?s commissioners, noted, however, that construction costs have recently stabilized. Mr. Chin also queried that if air pollution was a problem then why have terraces. A member of the developer?s team replied that rush hour traffic was not constant.

David Reck, the chairman of the zoning committee of Community Board 2, testified that Community Board 2 strongly supports the Hudson Square rezoning, which included this site, and felt that that the project did have some hardships that justified changes in lot coverage, but not in bluk. He also noted that the area?s ?building boom has created a partking regulation hangover that needs to be upgraded.?

In her remarks, Meenakshi Srinivasan, the chairperson of the board, suggested that perhaps the developer should raise his asking prices, enclose the balconies, and strive to keep the F.A.R. to the permitted 6.02, which might permit taller ceilings. She scheduled a continuance of the hearing for March 7.

Mr. Mckay said that the project would have a large-scale work by Arman, the only one in the city.

Arman was born as Armand Fernandez in 1928 in Nice, France. In 1947, he met Yves Klein with whom he hitchhiked in Europe. In 1951, he taught at the Bushido Kai Judo School and then served as a medical orderly in the Indo-Chinese War. Influenced by a Kurt Schwitters exhibition in 1954. he began working with stamp ink-pads, in part to critic Abstract Expressionism and in a few years was throwing ink objects at canvases. In 1958 he dropped the "d" in his name, inspired by a printer's error. He proceeded to explore the use of many different materials in her art and assemblages, including rubbish and burnt objects and sliced and smashed objects and organic garbage. In 1964 he had his first museum retrospectives at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.