Community Board 4 voted last night to recommend that the City Planning Commission approve applications for waivers for a proposed 12-story building at 511 West 23rd Street only if the design is modified to limit its height to no more than 145 feet and not permit it to encroach into the air space over the High Line.
The planned building, which will have 12 residential condominium apartments, has been designed by Neil Danari for Alf Naman and it partially overhangs with its vertically angled east facade the High Line elevated railway that is being converted to a park.
Lee Compton, the chairman of Board 4, is shown at the right beneath two renderings of the proposed Naman building as viewed from the north.
The building has bold diagonal steel facade accents that some might call of "son of Hearst," after the diagonal bracing in Sir Norman Foster's building for the Hearst Corporation nearing completion on West 57th Street.
The Preservation and Planning Committee of the board had voted earlier in the month by a vote of 5 to 4 to support the project in general but expressed "serious concerns about the aspects of the design that will negatively affect the environment of the High Line."
The proposed development extends through the block to 504-6 West 24th Street and the resolution passed by the board last night noted that the site "offers major problems to a developer" as "The portion of the lot not occupied by the High Line bed is extremely narrow, particularly on the 24th Street side."
"At 23rd Street, the High Line bed itself widens to the west to include a 20-foot-wide stub of a siding that formerly extended through the property and that still projects five feet from the street into the south side of the site west of the main portion of the bed. These limitations create major difficulties in taking advantage of the floor area theoretically available and especially providing floorplates adequate for the planned upscale condos. The proposed solution is a major residential building of conspicuously contemporary design on the 23rd Street portion of the site, located very close to the High Line bed, rising eight feet higher than the 145-foot- height limit currently in place on the street, and even projecting over the High Line on the upper floors," the resolution stated.
"On the 23rd Street side the proposed waivers of requirements for streetwalls and setbacks and for non-obstruction over the High Line that are designed to enable the proposed irregular form of the streetwall are actually beneficial. The varied form of the building streetwall will break up the monotony of the 120-foot high wall of new buildings along this block that has been creating by the existing mapping for a rigid contextual form at excessive height in a location where no real context existed. The cutaway form enfolding the stub of the High Line siding here actually responds and calls attention to the presence of this historic feature and does not negatively impact the main bed of the High Line that is the principal function of the prohibition to project. Rather the cutaway form at this point allows light and air onto the main bed."
"On the eastern side of the building directly adjacent to the main High Line, however," the resolution continued, "the waivers of requirements for setbacks west of the High Line and for prohibiting obstructions above the High Line will clearly have negative impacts on the experience of the main walkway.
The Naman project is immediately to the east of High Line 519, a narrow building now under construction that has been designed by Linda Roy to have cloud-like-form screens on its balconies.
Mr. Naman is planning several other projects in the area including a 20-story condominium tower designed by Jean Nouvel on 11th Avenue at 19th Street and a 12-story residential building on the north side of 24th Street west of Tenth Avenue.
The planned building, which will have 12 residential condominium apartments, has been designed by Neil Danari for Alf Naman and it partially overhangs with its vertically angled east facade the High Line elevated railway that is being converted to a park.
Lee Compton, the chairman of Board 4, is shown at the right beneath two renderings of the proposed Naman building as viewed from the north.
The building has bold diagonal steel facade accents that some might call of "son of Hearst," after the diagonal bracing in Sir Norman Foster's building for the Hearst Corporation nearing completion on West 57th Street.
The Preservation and Planning Committee of the board had voted earlier in the month by a vote of 5 to 4 to support the project in general but expressed "serious concerns about the aspects of the design that will negatively affect the environment of the High Line."
The proposed development extends through the block to 504-6 West 24th Street and the resolution passed by the board last night noted that the site "offers major problems to a developer" as "The portion of the lot not occupied by the High Line bed is extremely narrow, particularly on the 24th Street side."
"At 23rd Street, the High Line bed itself widens to the west to include a 20-foot-wide stub of a siding that formerly extended through the property and that still projects five feet from the street into the south side of the site west of the main portion of the bed. These limitations create major difficulties in taking advantage of the floor area theoretically available and especially providing floorplates adequate for the planned upscale condos. The proposed solution is a major residential building of conspicuously contemporary design on the 23rd Street portion of the site, located very close to the High Line bed, rising eight feet higher than the 145-foot- height limit currently in place on the street, and even projecting over the High Line on the upper floors," the resolution stated.
"On the 23rd Street side the proposed waivers of requirements for streetwalls and setbacks and for non-obstruction over the High Line that are designed to enable the proposed irregular form of the streetwall are actually beneficial. The varied form of the building streetwall will break up the monotony of the 120-foot high wall of new buildings along this block that has been creating by the existing mapping for a rigid contextual form at excessive height in a location where no real context existed. The cutaway form enfolding the stub of the High Line siding here actually responds and calls attention to the presence of this historic feature and does not negatively impact the main bed of the High Line that is the principal function of the prohibition to project. Rather the cutaway form at this point allows light and air onto the main bed."
"On the eastern side of the building directly adjacent to the main High Line, however," the resolution continued, "the waivers of requirements for setbacks west of the High Line and for prohibiting obstructions above the High Line will clearly have negative impacts on the experience of the main walkway.
The Naman project is immediately to the east of High Line 519, a narrow building now under construction that has been designed by Linda Roy to have cloud-like-form screens on its balconies.
Mr. Naman is planning several other projects in the area including a 20-story condominium tower designed by Jean Nouvel on 11th Avenue at 19th Street and a 12-story residential building on the north side of 24th Street west of Tenth Avenue.
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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