New development on the Bowery

**boweryboy** · September 14th, 2004, 11:45 AM

I was walking by Lafayette near Kenmare yesterday and there is a construction site. The permit says they are building a residential building with 11 stories and 56 units. Does anyone know anything about this?

**Derek2k3** · February 2nd, 2005, 10:52 PM

The project is called Kenmare Square. There use to be a thread but it disappeared. It consists of an 11 story 146 ft tower and a 6 story building on Crosby Streert. Designed Gluckman Mayner Architects and developed by Cape Advisors Inc. and Andre Balazs. The attatched photo below was taken by Daniel8ty8.

From Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate.:

"Kenmare Square. 210 Lafayette Street.
A Downtown Residential Project. Co-developed by Cape Advisors Inc. and Andre Balazs.
Designed by Richard Gluckman.
Experience a unique reinterpretation on "Loft" lifestyle and residential architecture poised between the neighborhoods of Soho and Nolita.
The 11-story undulating curved tower is a testament to harmonized form and function. Noted Architect, Richard Gluckman has designed the
interiors that carry through the same precepts of movement, contrast and texture of this building he created. The finishes consist of solid ash
wood flooring, oversized windows, and 10' ceilings. White carrera marble counters and back splashes are highlighted with gray lacquered
cabinets and white laminated glass fronts. The master baths boast over-sized soaking tubs and separate showers highlighted with Blue de
Savioe marble and white lacquered cabinets, inverting the color motif in the kitchen which includes stainless steel European appliances.
Additionally, there is a 24-hour concierge, a fully equipped gym, and the convenience of an on-site building manager. The units range from
460 Sq. Ft. to 2,700 Sq. Ft. in a variety of floor plans.
Starting from the $600,000's to $6,000,000.
Sales Office 212.274.0616"

Old article from November 2002 from the New York Post.

"More information is pouring in on Andre Balazs' proposed condominium project that includes an 11-story apartment building on Lafayette Street and a 6-story apartment building on Crosby.

According to sources, there will also be a commercial space on the ground floor.

"The new building will fill in an unattractive gap (an existing parking lot) in the street front along Lafayette Street and provide a beacon at the eastern edge of SoHo," says the source. The original architect Jean Nouvel, has been replaced by Gluckman Mayner Architects, which has designed many galleries and retail spaces including Helmut Lang and Yves Saint Laurent.

In recent years, Gluckman has designed many of the new galleries in Chelsea including Paula Cooper Gallery, Mary Boone Gallery, Cheim & Read, Luhring Augustine, Andrea Rosen and the new Gagosian Gallery.

The Crosby Street building will have loft-style apartments that will feature one per floor. The larger Lafayette Street building will have apartments of varying sizes featuring very large apartments with terraces on the top floors.

The apartments in the Lafayette Street building will also have expansive views panning both East to the Williamsburg Bridge and West across Manhattan. No prices have been floated as yet."

**Archit_K** · February 27th, 2005, 03:34 AM

^ http://www.gluckmanmayner.net/GMA.htm

**krulltime** · April 28th, 2005, 11:31 PM

Cooper Square Avalon Chrystie:

Facts:
Located in Cooper Square
708 Apartments
85,000 sf of Retail Space

**MidnightRambler** · May 1st, 2005, 04:21 PM

interesting... looks sort of modernist in the last few renderings

**krulltime** · May 5th, 2005, 05:49 PM

Originally Posted by boweryboy

I was walking by Lafayette near Kenmare yesterday and there is a construction site. The permit says they are building a residential building with 11 stories and 56 units. Does anyone know anything about this?

Here is another rendering I found...

http://www.elliman.com

**NoyokA** · May 10th, 2005, 11:11 AM

NYTIMES:
May 8, 2005
One Kenmare Square: There Is No There There
By SAM KNIGHT

One Kenmare Square is the latest address in SoHo.

For the last few months, in distinct, white letters, it has adorned the billboard of the new André Balazs apartment building taking shape just south of Spring Street. The only problem, if there is one, is that there is no Kenmare Square.

That's not to say that the address has been plucked from thin air. The new building, which is dark and shiny with an undulating front, overlooks the A-shaped intersection of Cleveland Place and Kenmare and Lafayette Streets.

"It felt more like a square than anything else," said Keith Bashaw, a spokesman for Mr. Balazs, on the thinking behind the address.

In bygone days the intersection was indeed known as Kenmare Square, although in 1987 the 0.03 acre of creased concrete in the middle was named Lieutenant Joseph Petrosino Park, in honor of the city's first Italian-American police lieutenant. Nevertheless, the building stands squarely on the lot at 210 Lafayette Street. And an informal poll of local business owners one recent morning drew mixed reactions about the new, glamorous address.

Carlos Thom, the manager of Lafayette Color Lab at 216 Lafayette Street (a possible candidate for No. 2 Kenmare Square, should the name catch on), was gracious about both his new neighbors and their title. "Actually, I like it," he said. "With the park right there, it has a lot of meaning to it."

Understandably, reaction was rather less receptive on Kenmare Street, where some business owners suggested that the new building was helping itself, uninvited, to a liberal dose of Kenmare-ness. "Everybody looks at it and says, 'How on earth did he get Kenmare Square?' " said Sydelle Phillips, the owner of Allstate Glass, a shop that has been happy with its address, 85 Kenmare Street, since 1923.

Hagay Nagar, the manager of Hoomoos Asli, a restaurant opposite the new building, was more emphatic. "He can't, he's on Lafayette," said Mr. Nagar, gesturing across the square. "I don't how he got this. Oh, my God!"

But Mr. Nagar took solace in his own address, 100 Kenmare Street: "One hundred is a strong number, you know. One hundred sounds perfect."

The finished product looks nothing like the renderings.

**Derek2k3** · May 10th, 2005, 04:25 PM

Yea, I know.
I'm not sure how I feel about it.

Curbed
1 Kenmare Square Update: Now Officially Undulating
Monday, May 09, 2005, by Lockhart

http://www.curbed.com/archives/2005/...ating.php#more

**NoyokA** · May 10th, 2005, 04:45 PM

Thanks for the picture Derek. I was thinking those punchouts were the finished windows, that would've been horrible.

**boweryboy** · June 19th, 2005, 05:15 PM

The new owner of the now to be hotel at bowery and 3rd is completely redoing the exterior. They have started to reconfigure the window openings (e.g at the bottom one wall has 4 across where there used to be 5) so it looks like they are going to have larger rooms than originally planned. Here are 2 photos. The new windows are a vast improvement over the original, cheap looking ones.

**pianoman11686** · July 29th, 2005, 11:54 PM

From http://cityrealty.com:

Community group objects to tower proposed next to East Village landmark 29-JUL-05

The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation has objected to an application for a certificate of appropriateness from the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission for a planned 177-foot-high residential tower adjacent to the 1845 Tredwell Skidmore House at 37 East 4th Street in the East Village, an individual landmark.

Last December 20, New York County Supreme Court Justice Walter B. Tolub ruled that the owners of the Tredwell Skidmore house had failed to maintain it in “good repair,” the first time that a court upheld the requirement of owners of official New York City landmarks to keep their properties in “good repair.” The Skidmore House, built in 1845, was designated a City landmark in 1970 and described as an "unusually impressive" Greek Revival residence that was characteristic of its East Village neighborhood in the mid-19th century.

After a portion of the roof collapsed into the building in 2002, the landmarks commission initiated a lawsuit to force the owners to return the building to the condition of "good repair" required by the Landmarks Preservation Law.

In his decision, Justice Tolub described the building as being in "dismal state of disrepair" and ordered the owners to make all the repairs required by the Commission in order to stabilize and preserve it. The Court's order directed the owners to make the repairs currently needed and to maintain the building in the future. The building owners listed on the legal papers include: 10-12 Cooper Square, Inc.; Allan Goldman.”

On July 12, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation testified before the commission that an application for a certificate of appropriateness for the property was "premature," adding that "the owner of the property has not even started the necessary stabilization work and repairs to the 1845 house,…but...is asking for permission to build a large, out-of-scale development on the adjacent property." "It is incredibly disconcerting that these owners, who have such a history of flagrant neglect and disregard of the historic property, are asking for special consideration before they have shown that they intend to repair and stabilize the house as required by the courts. Although the applicant before the commission …claims to have no relation to the owner who has allowed this building to deteriorate to the point of near-collapse, it must be pointed out the owner, by leasing the land to this developer, will certainly profit from the proposed and extremely large 177-foot-tower that the developer is asking the commission to support."

The commission took no action on the application.

According to the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, the developer seeking the application is the Atlantic Development Corporation, which now has a long-term lease on the property.

The Skidmore House was a row house built in 1845 in the then-fashionable area of East 4th Street between the Bowery and Lafayette Street. The building was owned by Sol Goldman who died in 1987 and afterwards his estate, which also owned the corner lot on one side of the house now used for parking and two row houses on the other side that were demolished around 1989. The estate was in litigation for several years and according to the District Lines Winter 2004 issue published by the Historic Districts Council "Neighbors watched as homeless people moved in, built fires in the reception rooms, trashed much of the interior." In the fall of 2002 the roof collapsed.

The two vacant lots to the west of the Skidmore House are being used for the city’s water tunnel construction and will eventually be converted to a small park on the other side of which is the Merchant’s House Museum. The air-rights for the vacant lots and the Skidmore House are to be used in the new construction project.