By ALBERT AMATEAU | Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer last week gave conditional approval to Rudin Management’s plan for the residential redevelopment of the former St. Vincent’s Hospital campus in Greenwich Village.
Stringer announced his opinion on Fri., Nov. 25, at the midpoint in the six-month uniform land-use review procedure (ULURP) for the proposal to create 450 new condominium apartments on the east side of Seventh Ave. and a triangle park on the west side of the avenue.
The entire project also includes the conversion of the St. Vincent’s O’Toole Building on the west side of the avenue into a comprehensive-care community health center with a free-standing emergency department run by North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System. But the O’Toole conversion is as of right and not part of the ULURP application.
The City Planning Commission, which must approve the project, held its last public forum on the plan on Wednesday.
Under the city’s land-use procedure, the commission now has 60 days to approve, disapprove or modify the plan before it goes to the City Council, which in turn has 50 days to approve or reject the plan. The City Council’s approval is the last step in the review process.
If the Council calls for changes, City Planning must decide whether the modifications are within the scope of the project’s environmental impact statement (E.I.S.).
Stringer noted that Rudin has made a commitment to address some of the concerns of Community Board 2, which voted in October to disapprove the redevelopment plan.
But the borough president did not condition his approval on the inclusion of affordable housing, which C.B. 2 wanted. Moreover, Stringer did not repeat C.B. 2’s urging Rudin “to make a substantial capital contribution to the establishment of a new public school in the C.B. 2 area, such as 75 Morton St.”
Although the review for the St. Vincent’s redevelopment does not involve a replacement for the hospital that closed its doors in April 2010, advocates for a St. Vincent’s replacement packed the Nov. 30 City Planning hearing and demanded rejection of the Rudin project unless and until a full-service, acute-care hospital with a Level 1 trauma center-equipped emergency room replaces the old hospital.
Members of the Coalition for a New Village Hospital said the proposed North Shore-L.I.J center in the O’Toole Building, with only two inpatient beds, was inadequate.
But Board 2 and Stringer have noted that there is no viable successor to St. Vincent’s, the 161-year-old institution that went bankrupt twice in the past six years.
Stringer’s approval is conditioned on Rudin’s following through on commitments that include removing an oxygen tank storage facility on the triangle in order to increase the size of the proposed park there. The conditions also include Rudin’s executing a restrictive declaration against increasing the size of the residential project by transferring development rights across the avenue from the triangle.
Rudin is also committed to limiting retail uses on the east side of the avenue by prohibiting clubs and bars. The developer has also agreed to controlling nighttime light levels in the retail wraparound on W. 12th St. and to restricting signs on W. 12th and 11th Sts. to what is allowed in local retail zoning.
Rudin has also agreed to work with the community on a commemorative feature of the triangle park, including an AIDS memorial. But the commitment does not include retaining an existing 10,000-square-foot basement beneath the triangle.
Stringer said that whether or not keeping the basement is feasible, it would likely require an approval process beyond the ULURP. The borough president said he was “committed to working with all involved to realize a memorial to one of the most tragic epidemics that has ever affected our city.”
The approval is also based on Rudin’s agreement on construction measures addressing noise, dust, vibration and rat control and to barring noisy construction or delivery before 8 a.m.
The Greenwich Village-Chelsea Chamber of Commerce also endorsed the Rudin proposal at the Wednesday City Planning hearing.
Tom Gray, G.V.C.C.C. executive director, acknowledged Rudin for providing guarantees in 2008 that secured space in the New York Foundling Hospital building on Sixth Ave. at 17th St. for a new 564-seat public elementary school, which is scheduled to open in 2014.
Gray said the residential project would create 1,200 construction jobs over the next few years, and 400 permanent jobs.
“It would return much-needed foot traffic to the area, rejuvenating local businesses that have struggled in the wake of St. Vincent’s closing,” Gray said. “With facilities designed to accommodate 80,000 patients annually [in the North Shore-L.I.J.-operated O’Toole Building healthcare center] Rudin Management’s conversion of St. Vincent’s campus will not only transform the site itself but Greenwich Village as a whole,” Gray said.
However, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation told the City Planning Commission that it was opposed to Rudin’s plan as set forth in the ULURP. Like Community Board 2’s negative response to the project, the society said it was opposed to the proposed rezoning that would allow density 175 percent higher than the existing residential zoning for the Seventh Ave. frontage and about 200 percent higher than currently allowable on the W. 12th St. midblock.
Rudin is seeking new zoning that would almost equal what was allowed in 1979 to accommodate St. Vincent’s Coleman and Link buildings.
But Andrew Berman, G.V.S.H.P. executive director, said, “Zoning specifically intended to serve a public purpose should not be given over to a private, for-profit residential development, as Rudin is proposing to do in this case.”
Nevertheless, the borough president’s approval noted that because Rudin is giving up previous development rights transfers from the triangle, the maximum permitted density on the east side of the avenue would be less than what is currently on the site.
The plan calls for a 16-story, 203-foot-tall apartment tower on the east side of the avenue between 12th and 11th Sts. and demolition of the 17-story Coleman and the adjacent Link buildings. The former hospital’s Reiss building on 12th St. and the Cronin building on 11th St. would also be demolished
The Smith and Raskob buildings and the Nurses Residence on 12th St. would be converted to apartments and so would the Spellman building on 11th St. A 10-story apartment building would replace Reiss on 12th St. and a seven-story building would be built on 11th St. on the demolished Link site. Five townhouses would replace Cronin on 11th St.
