The Landmarks Preservation Commission approved a certificate of appropriateness yesterday for plans by the General Theological Seminary to expland on its historic campus in Chelsea.

The seminary had initially presented plans for a 17-story mixed-use building to replace Sherrill Hall, which was erected in 1959, fronts on Ninth Avenue between 20th and 21st Streets, is in need of repairs and which has been considered out of context architecturally with the seminary's architecture and grounds, which are known as the Close.

The new 17-story building was to contain about 75 co-op apartments that were to be developed in a venture with The Brodsky Organization, which had agreed to pay the seminary about $39 million to develop the property if plans were approved. The seminary would repay The Brodsky Organization about $24 million for erecting a new five-story administrative building on 20th Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues. The remainder of the Brodsky funds would be dedicated to preserving the existing campus.

Last year, however, the seminary, faced with substantial community opposition to its plans over the building's height despite the nearby presence of buildings of about the same height, reduced the proposed tower from 17 to 15 stories.

The revision, however, did not satisfy many community activists and earlier this year the seminary reduced from 15 to 7 the number of stories in a new library and apartment building it plans to replace Sherrill Hall.

The new building on Ninth Avenue will pay for the construction of the new administration building on 20th Street, "but will not generate any income for the Seminary's $21 million plan to preserve the rest of its property," according to Dean Ewing, who added that "we need to accept the reality...that support for a 15-story building was not forthcoming from elected officials and the Community Board."

The Chelsea Historic District has height limits of 75 feet even though there are several buildings very close to the seminary's campus that are much higher.

Community Board 4 voted February 7 to adopt the resolution of its landmark committee that opposed the granting of a certificate of appropriateness by the commission and the resolution also maintained that the seminary's plan would "reinforce significantly the already strong pressures toward gentrification that are transforming a community correctly described in the plan of 1994 as one of "economic and ethnic diversity."

In its resolution, the community board argued that "the tall, bulky structure creates a clearly separate new element that relates ambiguously to the Seminary itself and dominates both it and the nearby streets of the District....In scale, the tower overwhelms the Seminary close."

Dean Ewing has noted that the creation of the historic district and a recent rezoning in the area reduced the seminary's available undeveloped air rights by about half and has made it almost impossible to find a site to transfer the air rights for affordable housing.

Yesterday the commission voted 7 to 1 and the lone dissenter, Commissioner Stephen Byrns indicated he was not satisfied with the design of the smaller, mid-block, new building.

Lisi de Bourbon, a spokesperson for the commission, told Cityrealty.com today that the commission was "very happy" and "enthusiastic" about the seminary's new plans.

The Polshek Partnership is the architect for the planned new building on the avenue and Beyer Blinder Belle is the architect for the planned new mid-block building.