NEW YORK | 50 West Street | 778 FT / 237 M | 64 FLOORS

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by fioco

I sympathize with the need for schools, and with the need to correct the difficult walking situation around the tunnel entrance. These are legitimate issues to negotiate with the developers.

All sympathy aside, aren't those really City issues?

[fioco]

Antinimby, beg to differ, but BPC folks bemoaned the loss of the WTC mall and pleaded that something similar return. West Street is a great barrier, so shops and restaurants on Washington street, etc., won't be in their backyard. In a perfect world, they won't be subjected to the smells of the croissants and coffee they will risk their lives crossing traffic to consume. (Doesn't that sound like suburbs to you?)

Your criticism of nimbys is becoming strident and over-reaching, almost to the point of farce. Please don't trivialize the voice of your normally sharp observations. Maintain your opposition but also keep sight of common ground. Nimbys may not be your friend, but they want to be . . . if only they understood you. (There's truth there, so don't dismiss nimbys but engage them.)

Comment to NYGuy: You're absolutely correct. It's mostly city issues that city and urban planning should address in regards to new development. But cart has been before the horse; city planning has taken a back seat, when CBs should be seeking its advice and counsel. I'm trying to admit to present day realities; perverse as they've become.

[antinimby]

Originally Posted by fioco

Antinimby, beg to differ, but BPC folks bemoaned the loss of the WTC mall and pleaded that something similar return. West Street is a great barrier, so shops and restaurants on Washington street, etc., won't be in their backyard.

fioco, read my previous post carefully. That's exactly my point. They want retail, just as long as it's not right where their building is. Classic NIMBYism: we're not against it (development, stores, bars, clubs, crowds, etc.), but just not in our backyard.

Have you ever known an UES NIMBY fighting developments on the LES or Soho? No. It is almost always the developments in their neighborhoods.

In a perfect world, they won't be subjected to the smells of the croissants and coffee they will risk their lives crossing traffic to consume. (Doesn't that sound like suburbs to you?)

You don't even make sense with this. Risking life crossing streets? Croissants?

I think I know where you are heading with this one and I have a feeling you're going to start getting technical with how BPC is not suburban because of this or that.

To avoid going down this path with you, I am going to make it clearer just for you.

I did not say BPC is suburban. It may have some characteristics that are suburban-like but it is entirely within an urban setting. That's what most of the people in BPC prefer it.

They don't want to see stores and lots of foot traffic on the streets around their buildings, like you would find in another part of Manhattan.

In fact, if you were to propose this type of development within the boundaries of BPC, you'd get some protests.

Again, before you start coming up with examples, I know there are some stores on the groundlevel in some of the buildings there but overall this is more of the exception than the norm.

With many of these things, NIMBYs will tolerate it just as long as they are kept to a minimum.

Your criticism of nimbys is becoming strident and over-reaching, almost to the point of farce.

Or is it because I pointed out your incorrect thought?

On this or any other forum, I rarely ever go overboard with my criticisms, toward NIMBYs or anyone else. My opinions, both in numbers and intensity are on the moderate and light scale as compared to many others.

Your observations is off the mark with that one. I am going to leave it at that regardless of what you're going to have to say in response to this, as we're getting way off topic here.

[fioco]

Not we. You. Typical.

[antinimby]

Damn. That really hurt.

[NewYorkYankee]

Sorry, I'm late to the game. Why couldn't they better utlilze The World Financial Center when it comes to shopping? I mean, an assocated here and a CVS there would do a world of good. And didn't they rebuild the walkways anyway?


Anywho, I LOVE the look of this building. I like how people are finally starting to get creative with glass. I think it's a sad statement that 20 years after post-modernist, we're only starting to get away from the glass box.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by NewYorkYankee

Sorry, I'm late to the game. Why couldn't they better utlilze The World Financial Center when it comes to shopping? I mean, an assocated here and a CVS there would do a world of good.

BPC could use a few more stores. That's one reason it feels different from the rest of Manhattan. Whenever I'm there on weekends, it seems I have to go out of my way to find anything open around the WFC.

[CoolCzech]

Damn, the Community Board is demanding a free art gallery in return for approval?

What's next... a shrubbery?

[nygirl1]

Eh, so what. A free art gallery would be cool.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by CoolCzech

Damn, the Community Board is demanding a free art gallery in return for approval?

What's next... a shrubbery?

An aquarium would be nice. And at least two weekends out of the year, the developer should be forced to perform clown shows for the kiddies...

[NewYorkYankee]

maybe they'll demand a strip club

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by NewYorkYankee

maybe they'll demand a strip club

Yeah, as long as they're going to demand something, I wonder why people never demand things like that....

[NYguy]

Looking south towards the site from the Liberty Street pedestrian bridge. This tower will put a new cap on the area...

JULY 22, 2007

[Jularc]

Beep says stop on West St. condos


By Josh Rogers
Volume 20 Issue 12 | August. 3 - 9, 2007

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer rejected a $550-million hotel and condo project at 50 West St. Wednesday because it includes no money for affordable housing.

Stringer told Downtown Express that the subsidized project has little “tangible public benefit for the city” and there would have to be a substantial investment in affordable housing in order for him to change his mind. Stringer said all of the money the city collects on the project would have to stay in Downtown’s Community Board 1 area. A few hours later, he filed his official rejection, which is only advisory but is likely to have influence with the City Council’s Manhattan delegation. The project cannot proceed without City Council approval.

Under the proposed deal, Time Equities would buy 183,000 square feet of air rights from the city and knock down the green-topped, 1912 building at the southern end of West St. to build a 63-story tower with 400 condos and 183 hotel rooms. Francis Greenburger, chairperson and C.E.O. of Time Equities, said he expected to pay the city about $30 million for the air rights.

Greenburger, in a telephone interview, said he isn’t too troubled by Stringer’s rejection since it is up to the city to fulfill the borough president’s housing goal.

“It’s between him and the city… I would have preferred if he could have worked it out,” he said. Greenburger said it would be “foolish” to build affordable housing units at 50 West because it is a particularly expensive building to construct, but he does think Lower Manhattan needs more below-market housing.

He is looking to acquire a particular Downtown property soon that he said is well-suited for a “substantial affordable housing component.”

Greenburger’s director of acquisition and development, Phillip Gesue, outraged some Community Board 1 members in June when he told them they should move to Brooklyn if they couldn’t afford the rising rents Downtown. Greenburger said Wednesday that he disagreed with his employee.

“That’s not my view,” Greenburger said. “It’s desirable to have affordable housing whenever it is possible.”

Stringer said he has high regard for Greenburger and was hopeful the developer would help create more affordable housing Downtown. C.B. 1 also called for the project to have affordable housing and for the money to stay in Lower Manhattan. Nevertheless, the board gave an official yes to the proposal.

City officials declined to comment for attribution for this article. One, speaking on the condition on anonymity, said the city sees the project as an improvement to the area and has no intention of tying any more specific community benefits to it. The project is next to a dangerous pedestrian area near the entrance to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and includes improving the pedestrian access through narrow Ward St., creating a small public plaza there. Greenburger has agreed to buy laptop computers for I.S. 89 students, which will allow the school to close its computer room and free up classroom space for overcrowded P.S. 89.

The board hoped the conditional yes vote would have more influence than a rejection, but that message may have been lost in translation, at least according to the city official.

“A conditional yes is a yes,” he said.

Stringer said he thought the best way to get changes was to make it clear the current plan was unacceptable.

Julie Menin, Community Board 1’s chairperson, tried to get her fellow board members to take a harder line in June. She said Wednesday she was “quite surprised the board did not have a sense of outrage over West St.” She was surprised that few residents showed up to object to the plan and said that may have influenced board members. She said she was glad when Stringer called to tell her of his decision.

Menin did end up backing the board resolution when members agreed to change the language from “support” to “conditionally support.”

Councilmember Alan Gerson said he wants to add an affordable housing component to the proposal, but he has not made that a condition for his approval. He and his aides negotiated the I.S. 89 computer agreement before the plan was presented to the community board and one aide spoke favorably of the proposal during the early community board discussions.

Gerson said now that the plan moves to the Council, he expects negotiations with Time Equities to resume. He said he has already told executives of the need for affordable housing.

Getting the computers was only a first step, he added. “We made it clear that was a prerequisite,” Gerson said, “but we made it clear that was not enough.”


© 2007 Community Media, LLC

[Lecom]

Uhh! THe country is soending billions of dollars A WEEK fighting in foreign countries and paving way for expansion of American corporations, yet can't set up a decent budget for affordable housing for its own people! Why is the federal housing program, if one even exists nowadays, so deficient that it can't support its own people in need, forcing city officials to place the burden on local entrepreneurs improving the face and status of the city? What a bunch of hypocrites that complain about Downtown dying yet shut down projects aimed at its revitalization. I can't really blame the borough president, because he's trying to push an agenda that benefits the city's lower classes, yet I blame state and federal officials that force city officials to fend for themselves and to bully developers. New York City pays millions, if not billions, more in taxes to Albany than it gets back. Can't they send at least several more millions back to the city's aid?

[Dac150]

so much for this tower.

[Scruffy]

i don't think its dead at all

[sbarn]

Stringer is a snake... I hope this tower proceeds as planned. Every building in New York shouldn't have to include an affordable housing component. "No tangible benefit to the city" -- I'd like to see Stringer prove that claim.

[Dac150]

Originally Posted by Scruffy

i don't think its dead at all

There would be nothing I would like better to see myself wrong in this case and you right. What a shame though if this building is dead.

[antinimby]

They can still build even if the city were to deny the air rights transfer, just a smaller building that's all.

In that were to be the case, the developers wouldn't even have to include any community benefits at all and the city loses.

Stringer just wants to sound like he's fighting for the people but he comes off sounding like a dumb jackass to anyone who has any clue.