The Jewish Home and Hospital, which occupies about three quarters of the block between 105th and 106th Streets and Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues, wants to demolish its several buildings on the block and replace them with a new building for the institution and a new condominium apartment building that will help pay the costs of the project.

The new, 15-story, nursing home structure would be built on the west end of its property on 106th Street and the new, 14-story, condo building would be built on the east end and much of the frontage on 105th Street would be open and green as indicated in the illustration at the right.

Both proposed buildings, however, exceed a 12-story height limitation contained in a rezoning of the area that has been approved by Community Board 7, the Borough President and, last week, by the City Planning Commission and is scheduled to be voted upon next month by the City Council.

The apartment building would contain about 300 units, according to Martin Siefering of Perkins Eastman Architects, which has prepared the institution's plan. Mr. Siefering told CityRealty.com at a standing-room-only community meeting last night in the institution's large auditorium at 120 West 106th Street that a developer for the condo building has not yet been selected.

Bruce Nathanson, senior vice president of the institution, told the meeting that "it is painfully clear that our physical plant is inefficient and outmoded" and "operates at about 60 percent efficiency and has, at most, ten more years of useful life." "Simply stated," he continued, "if it is not re-built, we will be forced to close." He said that the proposed new facility will have 386 beds as compared to the present count of 514 to comply with a mandate by the New York State Department of Health to "downsize."

He said that a "viable plan came together" last December and was submitted to the Department of Health. "Only then did we learn from Community Board leaders about plans for a down-zoning of the Upper West Side. In hindsight, we sincerely regret that we were not part of that conversation," Mr. Nathanson said, adding that "we applaud the work, and are supportive of the overall goals...Still, the mission to serve the frail and elderly remains...and the need to rebuild this campus is urgent."

He said that the new nursing home facility will cost $232 million and that the state will provide a $122 million mortgage. John S. Ruskay, the chief executive officer of the United Jewish Federation, told the meeting his organization hopes to provide the institution with about $40 million. Mr. Nathanson said that "our best fundraising efforts will not be sufficient" and therefore a sale of part of its property was necessary.

The height limitations and "split-lot" requirements of the proposed rezoning would "not allow us to raise necessary funds to re-build," according to Mr. Nathanson.

The institution has proposed that it be exempted from the new zoning if it used "green" building standards, provided "safe, comparable and affordable housing" for its staff and retirees who are tenants in two of its buildings now, and also provided low-income affordable housing on land it owns on 107th Street."

There are much taller buildings than what the institution is proposing in the vicinity such as the redevelopment of the former cancer hospital a block away on Central Park West and many towers nearby to the south on Amsterdam Avenue.

Although the vast majority of speakers at the meeting praised the institution for the quality of its health-care and importance to the neighborhood, a speaker from Landmark West!, a civic organization on the Upper West Side, and Hope Cohen and Ethel Sheffer, both active members of Community Board 7, were bitterly critical of the institution's plan that they claimed would "undermine and create loopholes in this hard-won community process" at the last minute.