The Landmarks Preservation Commission indicated yesterday that it will seek further reductions in the height of the proposed new residential building on the east side of Seventh Avenue between 11th and 12th Streets in Greenwich Village.

The commission did not issue a ruling at its hearing at the New School for Social Research on the residential plans of the Rudin Management Company that has entered an agreement to buy eight buildings from St. Vincent's Hospital but many of the commissioners indicated they felt the current plan, which has already been reduced in height once, was still too tall.

The hospital recently received approval for its hardship application to demolish the nautically-styled Edward and Theresa O'Toole Medical Services Building designed initially for the National Maritime Union by Albert Ledner on the west side of Seventh Avenue between 12th and 13th Streets for the construction of a new hospital building designed by I. M. Pei & Associates.

The commission had previously found that the O'Toole Building was worthy of being preserved architecturally but then gave permission when the hospital presented a hardship application. The hospital initially wanted a 329-foot-high new building and that design was subsequently lowered to 299 feet and eventually to the current planned height of 286 feet.

The original hospital plan called for all the hospital's buildings on the east side of Seventh Avenue to be redeveloped by the Rudin company. The initial design for the Rudins by Dan Kaplan of FXFowle Architects called for low-rise townhouse buildings in the middle of 11th and 12th Streets and a 266-foot-tower residential building along the avenue frontage. The commission, however, objected to its height and only approved a 233-foot-high tower and a new plan that preserved four of the site's existing buildings including one on the southeast corner of the avenue at 12th Street.

In an article by Glenn Collins on the City Room blog of The New York Times late yesterday, Pablo E. Vengoechea, vice chair of the commission, said that the current Rudin scheme was "very, very tall, and that is going to be an issue going forward for us."

"The Seventh Avenue building is still problematic," said Christopher Moore, another commissioner, "and needs to be reduced as much as possible," according to Mr. Collins's article.

The properties are in the Greenwich Village Historic District and institutions can claim hardship to demolished properties within such districts if they can establish that their maintenance hinders their ability to pursue their charitable purposes.

St. Vincent's originally sought to sell eight of its buildings on the east side of Seventh Avenue -- all of them part of the historic district -- to the Rudins for about $310 million.

Commissioner Roberta Brandes Gratz declared at yesterday's meeting that the O'Toole building was "an iconic modern landmark" and that its demolition would establish "an alarming precedent" as it is currently suitable to be used by the hospital, according to Mr. Collins's article that also noted that "a coalition of New York historic-preservation and community groups filed suit against the commission and the hospital in March, seeking to block the razing of O'Toole." "The suit, which is pending, claimed that the commission members failed to follow the hardship standard established by the United States Supreme Court during two previous preservation battles that saved Grand Central Terminal and that prevented St. Bartholomew's Church from demolishing its community house to build a 59-story office tower so it could finance church programs," the article continued.

The commission yesterday formally approved the demolition of the O'Toole building, shown at the left in the accompanying photograph.