Andrew Berman of G.V.S.H.P. testifying against the proposal, said, “This is not change. This is obliteration.”
BY YANNIC RACK | A “managed evolution,” “extraordinary,” “an architectural flourish.”
“Out of scale,” “inappropriate,” “a giant, hulking, monotonous mass.”
The two sides in the continuing fight over plans to redevelop a historic block on Gansevoort St. are as hard to bring together under one roof as they sound.
They clashed once again this Tues., Nov. 10, at a hearing of the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission on the proposal, which would drastically remake an entire, low-slung block of market-style buildings on the south side of the street, located in the landmarked Meatpacking District.
“We are frankly disturbed that such a proposal would even be considered,” said Andrew Berman, the executive director of the Greenwich Society for Historic Preservation.
He was one of dozens of residents, property owners and preservationists that crammed into the commission’s hearing room on the ninth floor of the Municipal Building on Centre St. to deliver passionate testimony against the redevelopment.
“This is not change. This is obliteration of the scale, sense of place, history and identity of the defining street of the Gansevoort Market Historic District,” Berman said, to applause from the audience, which spilled out into the waiting room outside.
Villagers, shown listening to testimony at the Landmarks Preservation Commission, turned out in numbers to speak out against the plan.
Before the critics had a chance to voice their opposition, the architects behind the proposal laid out their vision to the L.P.C. commissioners. Heavy on details, the presentation referenced many of the same historical remnants that locals say they are fighting to preserve.
Community Board 2 last month rejected the proposal in a unanimous vote, but the plans have not been changed in response to the pushback.
“This is an extraordinary opportunity,” said Harry Kendall, a partner at BKSK architectural firm, who presented the plans with his colleague Todd Poisson, as well as Cas Stachelberg of the preservation firm Higgins Quasebarth & Partners.
“There has been a tremendous amount of change in this district,” Stachelberg said. “This notion of adaptive reuse and change is really sort of inherent in the DNA of this district.”
William Gottlieb Real Estate owns the block and is partnering with Aurora Capital Associates to redevelop it. The two companies have recently teamed up for another project on nearby Ninth Ave., where they are constructing a “glass cube” addition atop the old home of local restaurant Pastis, which is planning to reopen next year on Gansevoort St. if the redevelopment is approved. That other project also faced staunch community opposition, but — after the original design was modified slightly — was ultimately approved by L.P.C.
Under the Gansevoort St. plan, some of the block’s one- and two-story brick buildings would be restored, while others would be demolished entirely and replaced by much higher structures up to eight stories tall.
The site has three lots. The first, at the eastern corner of Greenwich St., includes two separate two-story buildings at 46-48 and 50 Gansevoort St. The former would be largely preserved with minor renovations, while the latter would be replaced by three new stories.
The second lot is currently occupied by the Gansevoort Market, an indoor food court that opened last year, and would remain a two-story building. Work would be done on the cornice, and a new canopy, as well as new doors and windows, would be installed, according to the plans.
The third lot, 60-74 Gansevoort St., is split in two under the proposal: Nos. 60-68 would have an additional three floors added atop their existing two stories, plus another sixth floor that would be set back 20 feet. The one-story building at 70-74 Gansevoort St. would be demolished and replaced by a six-story building with a two-story setback penthouse vaguely resembling an oversized rooftop water tank.
While local residents are most angered by the proposed height of the buildings, the plan’s architects emphasize that the block historically featured much taller buildings than are there now, and note that the commission has approved changes to other landmarked buildings in the district in the past.
“We call this ‘The Rise and Rise and Fall and Collapse of the South Side of Gansevoort St.,’ ” said Harry Kendall of BKSK, showing a slide of the street’s changes in height over time.
He said most of the former tenement buildings lining the block were cut down to their current size in the late 1930s, when the meatpackers in the area “butchered” their buildings to reduce maintenance costs during the Great Depression.
“We don’t suggest that, because some of these buildings were taller, we have an inherent right to bring them back to their original height,” Kendall said.
“Rather, we look at the district and say, which buildings were purpose-built, how much care was taken in their transformation, if any, and what is the story of the district that this block tells, and could tell a bit more eloquently, if you approach it with care and thought?”
But the plan’s opponents point out that the street’s current market-style incarnation is the one protected by landmark status.
“We have deep reservations regarding this project and the negative impact it will have on the cityscape of the Gansevoort Market Historic District, which we have fought hard to create and preserve,” said Assemblymember Deborah Glick, who read a joint statement with state Senator Brad Hoylman at the hearing.
Jared Epstein, vice president of Aurora Capital, said he hoped local residents would come to realize that office use on Gansevoort St. would be “beneficial to the neighborhood.”
“That there have been intrusions in the past should not grant additional intrusions,” she said, to an outburst of applause from the audience.
Glick, together with Hoylman, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, City Councilmember Corey Johnson, and Congressmember Jerrold Nadler, sent a joint letter to L.P.C.’s chairperson, Meenakshi Srinivasan, last week, slamming the proposal as inappropriate and out of scale.
Apart from the increased height, residents are also concerned about the buildings’ future use. Due to zoning restrictions, the owner is currently barred from using the buildings as residential, hotel or office space.
But Jared Epstein, vice president of Aurora, has signaled that the upper floors could be used as offices if the restrictions were lifted in the future.
“It’s just a battle we didn’t want to fight at this time,” he told The New York Times recently. “We do hope that down the road, the community realizes that office tenants would be beneficial to the neighborhood.”
Sitting in the front row, Epstein remained silent throughout the entire hearing on Tuesday, and only shook his head occasionally while listening to a long line of critics decrying his proposal. He declined to comment on the hearing afterward.
Of the more than 40 people who testified, only two spoke in favor of the proposal. One was said to be a resident of the area, but his testimony was read by an Aurora employee, who claimed that the resident had to leave before it was his turn to speak.
The other, Jeffrey Holmes, is a vice president of Delshah Capital, a real estate investment firm that owns two buildings on the other side of the street, 55 and 69 Gansevoort St.
“We think that this is contextually appropriate, and that it fits with the scale of the street,” Holmes said of the proposal. “We have a vested interested in maintaining the character of the neighborhood, and we think that this is a responsible design that does that.”
According to its chairperson, Srinivasan, the commission also received a petition in support of the proposal with 800 signatures from residents, workers and visitors to the district. An Aurora spokesperson said petitions had only been circulated for a brief time. Some opponents reported seeing and overhearing petitioners over the last few days, telling people on the street about their plans to “beautify” the block.
“They hit the streets about three days ago,” said Elaine Young, a Community Board 2 member who lives just south of the Meat Market. “They were all over the place.”
Young is one of the founders of the group Save Gansevoort, which has been mobilizing opposition against the project and even chartered a bus to bring about two dozen locals to the landmarks hearing.
Their own petition has also been submitted to the commission, which received more than 2,300 letters and e-mails in opposition to the plans, according to Srinivasan.
The hearing marked what could be the last chance for opponents to weigh in on the application. After public testimony concluded, Srinivasan said the proposal would be discussed at a future public meeting of the L.P.C., yet to be scheduled.
Under the commission’s normal way of doing business, there would be no more chance for spoken testimony from the public, even if the commission decides to send the architects back to the drawing board. Normally, in that case, any altered plans would only be discussed by the commissioners and the developer. Members of the public would be allowed to submit written comments.
However, G.V.S.H.P.’s Berman said that, in this particular case, given the scale and significance of the project, the hope is that L.P.C. will operate differently and allow for continued public review and testimony.
“There definitely has been a push here, that if there’s anytime where a proposal would go back through the public process, this would be it, because this is such a complicated proposal,” Berman said. “There are so many different moving pieces here. Local elected officials have requested this, as have we and many members of the public.”
Being able to submit written testimony is one thing, “but there’s no substitute for being able to talk face-to-face to the commission about your concerns,” he noted.
Also, in the past, the commission has typically released updated designs very late in the process, often on the day of its public meetings, giving people little chance to digest the revised plans. Again, the hope is that, in this case, the public will have more opportunity to consider any changes that may be made to the plans.
By the time Tuesday’s hearing concluded, many in the audience had already left. But throughout their testimony, they had asked the commission to remember its mandate to protect the city’s history, and urged the commissioners not to set a negative precedent that could send the district’s landmark status down a rabbit hole of exemptions and alterations.
“It’s not an accident this district is called the Gansevoort Market Historic District,” said Zack Winestine, another member of Save Gansevoort, who lives on Horatio St. “The market is essential to the district’s history, and there is no block that represents this history better than the one discussed here today.”
Young, his co-leader on the ad hoc activist group, also pointed out that it is no accident that the cover of L.P.C.’s 2003 designation report for the district bears a photo of the block taken in the mid-20th century.
“I can only think that they thought this was a very special building,” Young said of the commissioners that originally designated the area. “I hope this current commission, you people, will uphold what they did back in 2003.”
