BY JACKSON CHEN | An all-girls Catholic school showcased its preliminary plans to construct a 13-story building to an Upper East Side neighborhood crowd that was generally supportive, even if some residents voiced wariness.
The Marymount School of New York and the project’s lead architect, Richard Cook of CookFox Architects, presented the conceptual design on October 29 in order to receive early community input.
The proposed new building would be located at 115 East 97th Street, across the street from one of the school’s current campuses at 116 East 97th. According to the plans, the new building, which would be fully accessible to differently abled people, would replace the school’s temporary tennis court and turf field. The 165,000 square-foot design calls for a building that would also include a rooftop greenhouse and meeting space, as well as four stories below ground. The plans show a 13-story building rising from East 97th Street, though school officials describe it as “a 12-story with a rooftop addition.”
According to the school’s director of development, Cathy Callender, the main impetus for the new building was the need for an improved gymnasium and an auditorium for the school’s performing arts program.
“The reason we’re building a building is we don’t have a regulation-size gym, we have a teeny tiny-size gym,” Callender said of a facility in the school’s main campus on Fifth Avenue at 84th Street, adding that the school is home to many championship teams but lacks an adequate home court.
In addition to the need for proper athletic facilities and auditoriums, Callender said the new building would also allow for improved dining facilities. The current setup, she said, where the students of the main campus and the East 97th Street building have lunch in the basement, is “less than ideal.”
Marymount owns three buildings at the main campus at 1026-1028 Fifth Avenue and has another campus at 2 East 82nd Street, but plans to sell the East 82nd Street location and move out of the current 116 East 97th Street campus. According to Callender, the school has the option to renew its lease at 116 East 97th, but officials there are hoping they won’t need to before its expiration in 2021.
On top of the basement-level athletic facilities, a new auditorium, and dining facilities, the proposed building includes a media lab, science laboratories, terrace gardens, and classrooms from the sixth to the 12th floors, according to the plans filed with the Department of Buildings on September 29.
When designing the building, Callender said that the school could’ve constructed an as-of-right building that was taller and narrower. However, Marymount chose to go with a shorter and wider design, which prevents an “elevator culture,” where students can’t easily walk between classes. Callender credited Cook with being very careful in his design to avoid that problem, but the resulting wider footprint means that the school cannot move forward as-of-right.
The next step, she explained, is the Department of Buildings rejecting the school’s application because the plan is not as-of-right, and Marymount filing an application with the Board of Standards and Appeals. If approved there, the school hopes to start an estimated three years of construction in 2017.
In the meantime, residents concerned about the upcoming development are hoping to keep open lines of communication with school officials. Callender said Marymount is planning on holding another public information session on a date to be determined.
“We’re just afraid it’s really going to change the nature of the block,” said Jules Feinman, founder of the 97th & 98th Streets/ Lexington & Park Ave. Neighbors association. “It’s a humongously long project that’s going to disrupt the lives of thousands of people.”
Feinman said the long construction process would create noise and congestion issues for the nearby residents. East 97th Street, he explained, is already overcrowded because it acts as a throughway from the East Side, across Central Park, to the West Side, and the construction process would exacerbate that problem.
The block association’s president, however, emphasized that the group was willing to work with Marymount in facilitating the project.
“We’re not a bunch of NIMBY freaks,” Feinman said, using the colloquial abbreviation for “not in my backyard.” “We’re not saying you can’t build your building because you’re going to deprive people of sleep, but you got to come up with hours that make sense.”
Similarly affected by the large project, Christina Johnson, president of the Lexington Houses Resident Association, voiced concerns about the building’s height.
“Construction would be another concern, but it’s something that’s not permanent,” Johnson said. “The major concern would be height-wise because that would be something that’s lasting.”
Johnson said the proposed building would cast a shadow over the Lexington Houses and their courtyard on East 98th Street, depriving the residents of sunlight. Throwing residents into “perpetual darkness,” she said, is a major concern.
The Lexington Houses’ president, however, suggested one remediation the school could attempt would be working with her group to develop a community garden that mutually benefits both groups. Still, Johnson would prefer if Marymount would consider the impact of the new building’s height and reduce the proposed 13 floors. She conceded, however, that she has concerns about construction at any significant height.
“To me, it doesn’t really matter what size the building is coming in because sunlight is going to be gone,” Johnson said.
