Columbia University Campus Expansion - Upper West Side

[Ed007Toronto]

In Toronto we have a similar 50's housing project called Regent Park. Towers in park, side streets shut down etc. Became major crime and poverty zone. In the last 5 years they have slowly started taking down a couple of towers at a time. Residents are moved to other social housing projects. Land was sold to developers to build condos and to replace city housing units lost. In the end all the social housing units will be replaced. Cost to city nothing as new units paid for by the condos. Density doubles, street grid reintroduced and poverty/crime zone becomes an active mixed use, mixed income neighbourhood. Win win.

[RoldanTTLB]

Residents are moved to other social housing projects.

I think is the biggest problem for a plan like that in NYC and anywhere really. There's just nowhere to move these thousands of people, and even if there were, they wouldn't go. There's so much distrust (not without reason), that would prevent this. Think about how it went the last time they did this? And truthfully, the dense neighborhoods were replaced with much less dense, but now overcrowded ones. The whole thing was a recipe for disaster, but this came from the same group of people who felt everyone could have a car (when simple back of the envelope calculations suggest that the entire surface area of manhattan would be needed for parking alone).

[Merry]

Hamilton Heights: Awaiting a Bounce

By C. J. HUGHES

Slide Show




The huge rental complex at 3333 Broadway and 135th Street


The entrance to City College on Convent Avenue.


Rafael Viñoly designed the renovations for the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture building at City College.


Hamilton Grange




A view of 147th Street between Riverside Drive and Broadway.

ALL it the Columbia effect.

The university is breaking ground on a satellite campus in Manhattanville, the once-industrial area north of 125th Street on the Far West Side, giving Hamilton Heights, the neighborhood next door, an extended turn in the limelight.

As the wrecking ball claims more and more of Manhattanville’s motley collection of warehouses and garages, Hamilton Heights, largely unknown to those who have never cracked the 100s on the No. 1 train, is preparing for an influx of teachers, students and support workers. It is also anticipating the higher real estate prices that usually come with proximity to an Ivy League institution.

“The average person who lives downtown doesn’t know about us,” said Christa Giesecke, an architect who has lived in the Heights for 11 years. “But that’s about to change.” She moved from the West Village in part because of the many handsome row houses, some with wide Romanesque arches over doors and windows, and fanciful terra-cotta details like serpents eating their tails.

Ms. Giesecke is the chairwoman of the land use committee of Community Board 9. (The board rejected the expansion plan in 2007; the more recent agreement includes provisions for community involvement.)

“Once Columbia establishes a presence here,” she said, “more people will know about us.”

The Heights stretches from the Hudson River to Edgecombe Avenue, from West 133rd Street to West 155th. It was named for Alexander Hamilton, whose clapboard-sided country house, Hamilton Grange, was recently moved a short distance to a prominent berth in St. Nicholas Park. The neighborhood’s other claim to fame is the presence of City College and its more than 15,000 students, most of them commuters.

City College’s neo-Gothic quadrangle was recently joined by the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture, Rafael Viñoly’s renovation of a late ’50s building. A science research center on the southern end of campus is nearly done.

In addition to four subway stops, the neighborhood’s amenities include two substantial parks. One is St. Nicholas Park, slightly overgrown, with stairs that zigzag through steep outcroppings. The other, Riverbank State Park, is across the Henry Hudson Parkway, and reachable by two footbridges. It takes a kitchen-sink approach to recreation, with a track, a secluded community garden, and a new restaurant with a patio on which to enjoy a beer while taking in views of the Hudson.

The high ground, relatively low density and low-slung housing stock, coupled with angled streets that break up the grid, often give the area a sunnier, airier feel than other parts of Manhattan.

The 80,000 residents live in a mix of five- and six-story tenements, many rent-stabilized; brownstones along Convent Avenue in the Sugar Hill area in the northeast corner and the West 140s near Riverside Drive; and a scattering of midrise co-ops. What is missing is new construction — the exception being a six-story midblock condo on West 135th Street, near Broadway, that was completed in 2002.

But condos exist as conversions, like the eight-unit Bradhurst Carriage House lofts, on West 146th. There are also condos in a string of 11 prewar buildings on Riverside Drive, starting at West 143rd Street. These were converted starting in 2006 by the Pinnacle Group, which in the process became embroiled in disputes with rent-regulated tenants over evictions.

Last week, according to Streeteasy.com, 94 homes were for sale in Hamilton Heights. At the low end was an income-restricted four-bedroom co-op for $139,000. At the high end was a three-family town house with a mansard roof, marketed as a one-family, in Sugar Hill, for $3.2 million.

“You can get the square footage that you can’t get downtown along with the finishes, at the same time,” said Ikahn El, a broker with Keller Williams, adding that Hamilton Heights town houses routinely sell for less than half the price of comparable buildings in the West Village or Chelsea.

Mr. El sees housing developers following close behind the opening of the new campus. He said he had been talking to a “hotelier who will remain nameless” about buying the site of an old theater at Amsterdam Avenue and 149th Street to build a condo.

“He said, ‘How much do you think you can sell condos for up here?’ and I said, ‘Well, I’ve sold condos for $1 million,’ ” Mr. El said.

Nancy Cabrera, a broker with Prudential Douglas Elliman, says her own experience living near a Columbia property convinces her that prices will rise.

In the 1980s she lived on West 103rd Street in a one-bedroom co-op that she sold for $335,000 in 2002. Then, she said, Columbia built off-campus housing on her corner — and in 2005 an identical apartment then sold for $500,000, which strikes Ms. Cabrera as a steep jump even in a hot housing market. She is now listing a four-bedroom 1901 town house at 470 West 148th Street for $975,000.

When the new Columbia campus is finished in 2050, Manhattanville will have a striking new look. Glass towers housing the business school, labs and classrooms will replace workaday brick structures, meatpacking warehouses and even a Studebaker plant. Sidewalks will be broadened and planted with trees. The $7 billion project — designed by the architectural heavyweights Renzo Piano; Skidmore, Owings and Merrill; and Diller Scofidio & Renfro — will create 6,000 permanent jobs, the university says.

The first phase, including the business school and a science center designed by Mr. Piano, is to be completed by 2015. Columbia has promised to put stores on the ground levels of some of the buildings.

Residents of Hamilton Heights look forward to those stores, especially those who moved to the area in recent years and were used to far greater shopping options downtown. Even franchises are few: The closest Starbucks is at West 145th Street and Bradhurst Avenue, just outside the neighborhood. The produce selection at the groceries can be limited. “There are a lot of mangoes,” Ms. Giesecke said, “but not a lot of berries.”

Many hope the university’s arrival inspires entrepreneurs to open more restaurants along Broadway, the area’s main retail strip.

Some early efforts failed. A trio of side-by-side restaurants on Broadway around 137th Street, Tres Pasos Mexican Kitchen, Vinegar Hill Bread Market and Café Largo, opened in 2007 but are now sitting dark.

There has been more success recently, say residents, who point to two popular new Italian restaurants from the same owner: Trufa, at West 139th Street, with a striped awning and exposed brick walls, opened in April; and Tonalli Cafe Bar, at West 149th, in 2009.

Gabriela Serrano, an assistant manager at Tonalli, said the business had originally operated a Mexican restaurant in the Trufa space. “The neighborhood is changing, so we wanted to, too,” Ms. Serrano said.

Laurie Lock moved to Hamilton Heights in 2005 after hopscotching northward on the Upper West Side — first to West 79th, then West 96th, then West 105th, and finally West 149th, where she owns a three-bedroom condo in a four-unit brownstone, with multiple decks. She said she paid less than $1 million for the place.

Ms. Lock, who works for a not-for-profit organization, started a kind of welcome wagon, a parents group to help organize holiday parties. Membership is now at 170 families.
She bemoans the lack of a good stationery store or clothing boutique, despite a critical mass of people who seem to desire such shops.

If any kind of new stores “were to open here right now,” she said, “and they were good, they would be booming.” She added that Columbia could be the spark that finally lit the fire for retail. “I think it is a positive development,” she said.

Tom Smith, a professional clown who has lived in a three-bedroom co-op on Riverside Drive in Hamilton Heights for seven years, is torn about the new campus. He said he did not like the institution’s use of eminent domain to get its hands on some key parcels. “I’m not really an eminent-domain kind of guy,” he said.

Yet he thinks Columbia will help curb street crime, which in turn may make the area a more pleasant place to walk. “There will be a lot less chicanery and hustling going around,” he said.

Of course, one person’s cool new cafe is another’s sign that the neighborhood is about to be ruined by gentrification. And there is no shortage of people in Hamilton Heights who fear Columbia’s arrival. Many renters live in income-restricted or rent-regulated housing and would be pinched by higher prices for goods and services.

Others, like Alicia Barksdale, who has spent her entire life at 3333 Broadway, a hulking 1,200-unit rental complex that practically sits atop the new campus, are more concerned about the short-term problems, like construction noise and dust.

In April, residents of the building, where Ms. Barksdale is president of a tenants group, demanded that their landlord, Urban American, install air-conditioners in all the windows to filter the dust, she said. Urban American did not return a call for comment.

There are also concerns that tenants will be pushed out once landlords realize they can make more from students, professors and staff members. But others say rent stabilization will make many residents difficult to dislodge.

“I’m all for making a better community,” Ms. Barksdale said. “But it has to be a better community in terms of affordable housing and jobs, and education for children and seniors.”

Robin Prescod, a broker with Harlem Homes Real Estate, says the new campus may concentrate students in Manhattanville, rather than disperse them throughout Hamilton Heights, where many live now.

The students might think, “If I can live on campus for $800, why would I pay $1,400 for a one-bedroom?” she said.

Mr. Smith, who grew up in the area, recalled gazing down on Manhattanville during jogs across the Riverside Drive viaduct, which spans it.
“You knew something was going to happen,” he said. “You just knew sooner or later it would be developed.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/re...-a-bounce.html

[londonlawyer]

This area has ENORMOUS potential. There are many stunning buildings. I believe that Columbia's new campus will gentrify this area further.

[londonlawyer]

Is this POS for poor people and therefore, sacrosanct? I'd love to see it torn down. It's disgusting.

[oquatanginwan]

That building is huge and hideous, but I don't see it going anywhere soon. It houses way too many people and has at least two schools in the complex. Hamilton Heights will be pretty resistant to gentrification because it's practically half public housing. It'll be interesting to see if the neighborhoods to the east of St. Nicholas park will be affected though. Those are truly wonderful brownstone neighborhoods.

Sidenote: Vinoly sucks.

[infoshare]

There are now four of those large red tank-like structures completed, but I have not been able to ascertain whether or not they are actually tanks.

I can't say exactly just what they are really: that area is what I thought was going to be the campus park - so we will have to wait and see what develops.

The general clearing of the area for phase one of the project is substantially completed; and much of foundation related work is beginning take shape. This project is easy to get a view of because it effectively had two terrific elevated vantage points for viewing the site, one from the elevated train station, the other from the roadway viaduct.

[RoldanTTLB]

They look like sewage treatment. That said, it's possible they're holding tanks for ground water. Not sure if they're having to pump out while digging foundations. This area is a real local low point. They don't appear at all permanent, or they would have poured the whole slab before putting them there. The other side of the street is packing some SERIOUS crane action, which I saw on the way to Dino Saturday. I'll have to start riding the 1/2/3 home occasionally to get shots.

[GordonGecko]

If it's a building for engineering classrooms/labs they could be for a number of purposes

[infoshare]

They don't appear at all permanent, or they would have poured the whole slab before putting them there. ........... I'll have to start riding the 1/2/3 home occasionally to get shots.

Under each of the red cylinders is a very deep poured-concrete & rebar slab/footing; a complete foundation was put in place for each of the four units. Also, they had spent several days 'welding' those individual red panels that make up the circumference of each cylinder.

So, I have go to disagree: they sure do seem permanent. That being said, some of this 'so called' temporary decks, platforms over at the WTC site are also composed of some very substantial concrete & steel components - so, we may just have to wait and see what develops after all.

I am guessing permanent structures: but what they are is anybody's guess at this point.
The odd thing is that looking at the 'site plans' published on the website, I identify that area as being a 'park area'.

On your way home you can get off at the 125th street station, there is a passage bridge that will get you to the West Side platform - for there you will get some terrific commanding views directly over the eastern section of the site. Enjoy.

[Gulcrapek]

Londonlawyer: 3333 Bway is partially public housing, partially market rate.

[infoshare]

This presentation was prepared for a Tenant Meeting held at 3333 Broadway: this PDF is contains both photographic and architectural graphics which provide an overview of the proposed project.

The graphics in this PDF are beautifully rendered and detailed, and the scale of the drawing are larger than all other I have yet seen. This was quite a find, and I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the file; I highly recommend view this presentation.

Also: Great book on architectural graphics, and process here, BIM and Integrated Design http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyT...470572515.html


http://neighbors.columbia.edu/pages/...3-broadway.pdf

[RoldanTTLB]

(click each for full size graphic)
Phase 1:


Phase 2:


Westward Elevation:


Eastward Elevation:


Northward Elevation:


Eastward on the East of Broadway Buildings:


Oddball wooden model of the whole thing:


Also, from past construction updates (http://neighbors.columbia.edu/pages/...previous0.html) the red tanks, etc, are in fact temporary slurry mixing, holding, and desanding equipment.

Hope that helps everyone visualize a little. Once I get a chance to take photos, I'll put together which buildings are under construction where on the site plan.

[infoshare]

Fantastic Roldan: I looked at that large site map today and have finally determined that those 'tanks' are not - thankfully - located in the park. There is a new building at that particular site location, so they will will be housed, and concealed, within that new structure. I am looking for some renderings of the proposed building; but none yet - probably still in the design development stage.

[RoldanTTLB]

Like I said, the tanks are only temporary. Anyway, this is the rendering for the first building (Jerome L. Greene Science Center).

[img]http://blog.archpaper.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/piano_manhattanville_new_01.jpg[img]
It's the building being founded at the corner of 129th and Broadway.

There do not appear to be renderings for the Kravis Buildings being designed by Diller Scofidio and Renfro yet.