Douglaston Development has informed Fordham University that it is withdrawing from its plan to develop a residential tower on its grounds just to the south of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, according to an article in the February 23, 2009 edition of The New York Observer by Eliot Brown.

Douglaston had signed an agreement to develop the tower more than three years ago, the article continued, "but did not close on the property, which Fordham is currently taking through a rezoning." The university's expansion plans for its "superblock" between 60th and 62nd Streets and Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues included two residential towers of about 50 stories each. The article indicated that "no developer had been engaged for the second site, so Fordham is left without any builders."

"Asked last week about the tower," the article continued, "Jeffrey Levine, chairman of Douglaston, said that he was negotiating with Fordham to step down from the deal. 'We have the option, as the result of our agreement, to back out,' Mr. Levine said. 'As a result of the delay in the approval process...and in consideration of market conditions, we think that's the prudent thing to do.'"

"'Given the status of the national and local economy, it is impossible to close any real estate transactions at this time,' a Fordham spokesman, Robert Howe, said. 'We expect the deal will be resurrected when the economy improves,'" the article added.

Community Board 7 unanimously voted last month at the American Bible Society at 1865 Broadway to disapprove Fordham University's plans to expand its Lincoln Center campus.

The university is seeking to modify much of the existing zoning for the site including its height and setback requirements, its inner and outer court yard requirements, the minimum distances between buildings, and the minimum distance between legally required windows and zoning lot lines.

It is also seeking a special permit to allow an attended accessory 68-car garage on the site of a proposed mixed-use building, and another to allow an attended accessory 265-car garage on the site of another proposed mixed-use building, and another to permit an accessory 137-car garage on a third proposed mixed-use site.

The community board maintains that the proposed new buildings and too bulky and too large and would severely impact traffic in the area and that it should not be able to sell two plots to residential developers because they had been acquired by the university for the purpose of education through eminent domain.

The plans would add about 2.35 million square feet to the existing "campus, which consists of the Schools of Business, Education, Social Service that was designed in 1962 by Voorhees, Walker, Smith, Smith & Haines, and the School of Law that was designed in 1969 by Slingerland & Booss."

The latter structure was described by Robert A. M. Stern, Thomas Mellins and David Fishman in their great book, "New York 1960, Architecture and Urbanism Between the Second World War and the Bicentennial," as "a long, narrow slab running parallel to Sixtieth Street, the building featured thin vertical strips of windows that, as the editors of Progressive Architecture reported, 'one source describes as an attempt to complement the white travertine mullions of the Metropolitan Opera House.'

It is, in fact, much more attractive, but its visibility in the neighborhood would be severely encroached upon by the proposed new construction.

The authors also noted that the structure, named the Leon Lowenstein Center, "was elevated on a massive concrete podium that turned a sheer wall toward Sixtieth Street and contained the vast, rather barren Robert Moses Plaza."