Community Board 3’s Housing Committee and full board recently voted to recommend that the upscale Christodora House condominium apartment building at Ninth St. and Avenue B should not be allowed to convert a former gym in the building into four new condos. Under an agreement with the city, when the former settlement house was converted residentially in the mid-1980s, the gym was zoned as a community-use facility. In its advisory opinion, C.B. 3 ruled that Christodora had not looked hard enough for potential nonprofit tenants for the space.
Brian Fenwick, a member of the building’s condo board, said the gym space is very raw — concrete slabs and hanging wires — and would need a lot of work. He said they will take C.B. 3’s advice and try to publicize the space some more, but that it won’t necessarily stop them from at the same time moving ahead with the Board of Standards and Appeals process, which is lengthy.
