By MIA RUPANI | The discussion got heated at a Community Board 1 meeting last week when more than 20 residents from 20 Pine St. voiced their concern over the construction of a ramp on their building.
The 74-foot long, 5-foot wide ramp is being built to accommodate Federal Express, which recently signed a lease with The Klein Group, owners of the retail space in the 20 Pine St. building, which has a mix of condos and rentals.
The city Transportation and Buildings departments were both consulted prior to the start of construction on the ramp, but according to the residents, they were never approached for comment.
“We believe that this project has been approved without any real community involvement or consideration for community impact,” said Stacey Haefele, who spoke on behalf of her fellow residents at C.B. 1’s Financial District Committee meeting July 1. “It is also not proceeding according to the plans that were submitted.”
“The ramp is massive and will dominate our building…it is much higher than the drawings submitted indicated,” Haefele said. The residents are worried that the ramp will take up the majority of the sidewalk, leaving them no place to put out trash and limit the walkway for people with strollers and the handicapped.
It is being constructed along Nassau St. toward the corner of Pine St., directly beside the 408-unit apartment complex — where two bedrooms list for $1.9 million to buy and $6,200 to rent.
Haefele said that one of the windows on the Nassau side of the building is being converted into a doorway for the ramp, which FedEx foot couriers will use when delivering mail to residents in the Financial District.
“This FedEx facility in our building is going to be the sorting facility for all of the Financial District, including the World Trade Center,” Haefele said in a phone interview. “FedEx claims only envelopes will be sorted here but imagine the amount of trucks that will be dropping off mail every day.”
FedEx spokesperson Connie Avery said in a phone interview that because of congestion Downtown, using foot couriers is the easiest way to deliver mail. Trucks will transport envelopes to the facility at 20 Pine St. where employees will then use pull carts to take it elsewhere in the Financial District.
“This ramp is our only viable option,” Avery said. “We want to be a good neighbor to the residents at 20 Pine St., so we will continue to talk with them.”
Jacob Klein, president of The Klein Group, in a phone interview, disputed the residents’ claims that there was no community involvement in the approval process.
“There were two meetings about the ramp with the D.O.B. and D.O.T.…the condo board was invited to both but the second time, the building manager did not show,” Klein said in reference to the departments of Buildings and Transportation. “This ramp is not only in compliance with A.D.A. guidelines, but this will help cut FedEx vehicle traffic by 50 percent in the Financial District.”
Nevertheless, the residents think the ramp is unnecessary because the couriers are able to take an elevator to the ground level entrance of the building on Pine St.
At the meeting, Haefele revealed that currently, construction on the ramp has been halted because of a stop work order.
“The ramp is bolted to the sidewalk when it was supposed to be suspended from the building façade,” she said. The case is still pending and the residents intend to resolve these issues before construction continues and is finished.
The Buildings Dept. ordered the work to stop June 26 in order to verify the ramp was being built according to plan, and the order remains in effect.
Haefele provided C.B. 1 with a petition of over 200 signatures regarding the construction of the ramp not only from residents at 20 Pine St., but also those living at 15 Broad St. and 40 Gold St.
According to her, the ramp is also a safety concern for everyone in the building. Directly under the ramp are five transformers that cannot be easily reached if they need replaced.
Robert Abrams, a representative of The Klein Group, tried to address the residents’ concerns at the meeting but was not well received. He did not dispute Haefele’s claim that the ramp is higher than originally proposed, but he did say that any problems could be easily corrected.
“We designed the ramp to be made of lightweight aluminum so it can be deconstructed,” Abrams said. “One-third can be removed in less than an hour and the whole ramp can be removed in a day.”
The residents actively challenged him and more than once and the community board members had to silence them to keep the peace.
Despite Abrams attempt to assuage the residents’ fears over the ramp, C.B. 1’s committee voted in favor of a resolution to hold the city agencies accountable and to ask them to report back on why the project was approved without any community involvement.
“The plans for this project were determined to be in full compliance with all applicable construction codes and the N.Y.C. Zoning Resolution, and the job was permitted to move forward,” a Buildings spokesperson wrote in an email. “The department will continue to work with the community should safety or compliance concerns arise at this work site.”
He did not reference his agency’s stop work order.
C.B. 1’s committee will address the stop work order with the city agencies and examine the ramp plans that were originally submitted to see if they are being followed. In addition, they will also be speaking with the D.O.T. directly regarding allegations over sign changes outside the building. Haefele said the signs on Nassau St. now read “truck loading/unloading only” and the change happened without anyone knowing.
“These sign changes happened a few weeks ago,” Haefele said. “Things are happening behind the scenes…now there is going to be a row of FedEx trucks lined up outside our building.”
Deciding to take matters into their own hands, the 20 Pine St. residents will also be attending the community board’s Quality of Life Committee meeting July 16 and its full board meeting July 28.
“Our goal is to prevent that ramp from being built,” Haefele said. “We aren’t opposed to FedEx necessarily. They aren’t an ideal tenant but that is not our fight…if we do not speak up and raise awareness, no one will.”
