Edison Properties wants to build a 407-unit residential tower at 249 West 28th Street in an area south of Penn Station that is currently a no man's land of cheap office lofts and questionable pizza joints, according to an article today at observer.com by Laura Kusisto.
The New Jersey-based developer owns the parking lot at that address, where it plans to build a large apartment tower with an affordable housing component, but needs the area rezoned, the article said.
Edison and the Department of City Planning have submitted concurrent proposals to rezone the former Fur District, spanning from Sixth to Eighth avenues and 28th to 30th streets to allow for some large residential development, while trying to preserve cheap office space and forestall new hotel development, the article said.
"The proposal is likely to stir up a decades-old questions about the future of midtown west, an area once dominated by garment manufacturers and now dotted with empty cheap office lofts, with condos and hotels in between. A previous proposal to rezone the Garment District to allow for more office development has stalled. New apartment towers south of Penn Station could, however, create additional pressure to rezone the Garment District, even as Brookfield is set to erect a massive mixed-use development at 33rd Street and rumblings of progress are also being felt at Hudson Yards--all likely to bring an influx of residents to surrounding areas," the article said.
An article by Julie Satow in yesterday's edition of The New York Times said Brookfield has indicated it will start construction later this year on a deck over the rail yards at its property bounded by Ninth and Dyer Avenues and 31st and 33rd Streets and on a two-million-square-foot office tower designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill on the northeast corner of its property by 2015 with plans to eventually construct as many as three towers.
In an apparent effort to preempt some of that opposition, the City Planning and Edison proposal requires developers to replace any office space over 50,000 square feet that is lost to demolition, the observer.com article said.
"Adding a measure of residential development to these business districts," said planning commissioner Amanda Burden in a statement, "can foster a more lively working environment while preserving and protecting existing office space and distinctive building stock."
Community Board Five will hold a meeting to discuss the rezoning proposal next Wednesday.
On Monday, the commission announced that it had launched public review for a new zoning designation designed to strengthen high density business districts rich in affordable Class B and C office space by encouraging new investment that will foster more vibrant mixed-use communities. The new zoning designation, M1-6D, would enhance the business environment by permitting new residential development in targeted locations while protecting existing office space and building stock.
The proposed M1-6D regulations would: Permit development at 10 FAR for commercial, manufacturing and a wider range of community facility uses; new residential buildings will be limited to 9 FAR unless they provide 20 percent of their residential floor area as affordable housing, which would enable them to increase the permitted FAR to 12; preserve the concentration of commercial uses by prohibiting the conversion to residential of commercial or manufacturing buildings with more than 50,000 square feet of floor area; allow hotels with over 100 rooms only through special permit, to ensure that these mixed use areas obtain a meaningful residential presence; on zoning lots with at least 50 feet of frontage, require that a minimum of 50 percent of the ground floor be dedicated to retail to enliven the street; mandate a building form that reinforces the existing streetwall context found in these high density M districts where M1-6D is proposed to be mapped.
The New Jersey-based developer owns the parking lot at that address, where it plans to build a large apartment tower with an affordable housing component, but needs the area rezoned, the article said.
Edison and the Department of City Planning have submitted concurrent proposals to rezone the former Fur District, spanning from Sixth to Eighth avenues and 28th to 30th streets to allow for some large residential development, while trying to preserve cheap office space and forestall new hotel development, the article said.
"The proposal is likely to stir up a decades-old questions about the future of midtown west, an area once dominated by garment manufacturers and now dotted with empty cheap office lofts, with condos and hotels in between. A previous proposal to rezone the Garment District to allow for more office development has stalled. New apartment towers south of Penn Station could, however, create additional pressure to rezone the Garment District, even as Brookfield is set to erect a massive mixed-use development at 33rd Street and rumblings of progress are also being felt at Hudson Yards--all likely to bring an influx of residents to surrounding areas," the article said.
An article by Julie Satow in yesterday's edition of The New York Times said Brookfield has indicated it will start construction later this year on a deck over the rail yards at its property bounded by Ninth and Dyer Avenues and 31st and 33rd Streets and on a two-million-square-foot office tower designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill on the northeast corner of its property by 2015 with plans to eventually construct as many as three towers.
In an apparent effort to preempt some of that opposition, the City Planning and Edison proposal requires developers to replace any office space over 50,000 square feet that is lost to demolition, the observer.com article said.
"Adding a measure of residential development to these business districts," said planning commissioner Amanda Burden in a statement, "can foster a more lively working environment while preserving and protecting existing office space and distinctive building stock."
Community Board Five will hold a meeting to discuss the rezoning proposal next Wednesday.
On Monday, the commission announced that it had launched public review for a new zoning designation designed to strengthen high density business districts rich in affordable Class B and C office space by encouraging new investment that will foster more vibrant mixed-use communities. The new zoning designation, M1-6D, would enhance the business environment by permitting new residential development in targeted locations while protecting existing office space and building stock.
The proposed M1-6D regulations would: Permit development at 10 FAR for commercial, manufacturing and a wider range of community facility uses; new residential buildings will be limited to 9 FAR unless they provide 20 percent of their residential floor area as affordable housing, which would enable them to increase the permitted FAR to 12; preserve the concentration of commercial uses by prohibiting the conversion to residential of commercial or manufacturing buildings with more than 50,000 square feet of floor area; allow hotels with over 100 rooms only through special permit, to ensure that these mixed use areas obtain a meaningful residential presence; on zoning lots with at least 50 feet of frontage, require that a minimum of 50 percent of the ground floor be dedicated to retail to enliven the street; mandate a building form that reinforces the existing streetwall context found in these high density M districts where M1-6D is proposed to be mapped.
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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