Yes
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April 20, 2004
Tower Would Create Residences, And Space for Pace University
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
A proposed residential tower designed by Frank Gehry, which would almost certainly add a twist to the Lower Manhattan skyline, is being considered for tax-exempt financing, the city's Housing Development Corporation said yesterday.
Forest City Ratner Companies would develop the tower. The building would rise 50 to 60 stories on what is now a parking lot behind N.Y.U. Downtown Hospital, across Spruce Street from Pace University, which might occupy about one-third of the new building. Under the current plan, there would be about 375 market-rate apartments, said Tracy J. Paurowski, a spokeswoman for the Housing Development Corporation.
Forest City Ratner has requested $131.4 million in tax-exempt financing through the Liberty Bond program toward the $210 million cost of the residential portion, Ms. Paurowski said. She said the corporation was not yet committed to approving the financing. Details of the project were first reported yesterday in The New York Post.
Besides the apartments and university space, the roughly 850,000-square-foot project would include about 40,000 square feet for the hospital, which owns the parking lot; 30,000 square feet of retail space; and 80,000 square feet of underground parking.
The project would allow a significant and visually distinctive expansion of the Pace downtown campus, which is understood to be a priority of its president, David A. Caputo, to handle a growing enrollment. Although no details are final, the university might take about 330,000 square feet of space in the new building, said a Pace official who requested anonymity because of the preliminary state of negotiations. There would be classrooms, largely for the business school; an art gallery; offices; and dormitory rooms.
Pace now has about 950,000 square feet of office, dormitory and classroom space in Lower Manhattan.
Forest City Ratner and the hospital declined to comment.
If the tower were completed, and depending on when, it would be the first high-rise building by Gehry Partners of Los Angeles. Until now, the firm has been best known for sinuous, undulating, polymorphic institutional buildings like the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.
A Gehry tower would add an extra jolt to the future downtown skyline, along with the twisting Freedom Tower and a stack of 45-foot glass apartment cubes at 80 South Street.
Mr. Gehry is already working for Forest City Ratner on the proposed Brooklyn arena for the Nets basketball team. He was seriously considered, but not chosen, for the future headquarters of The New York Times on Eighth Avenue, between 40th and 41st Streets, which Forest City Ratner is developing with The New York Times Company.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
http://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition..._times_31.html
If the tower were completed, and depending on when, it would be the first high-rise building by Gehry Partners of Los Angeles.
http://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition...y/neue_18.html
I suppose these qualify as mere mid-rises by NY standards.
That NYTimes one isnt getting built and the ones in Duseldorf are rather short.
Thanks for the double scoop.
May 19, 2004
Big Project Moves Forward on One-Acre Site
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
State and city officials are putting together more than $370 million in tax-exempt financing for a project in Lower Manhattan that is remarkable for the mix of uses on a single acre: an apartment tower, a business school, a dormitory, an art gallery, a hospital, a parking garage and a good-size store.
The one-million-square-foot building, designed by Frank Gehry for Forest City Ratner Companies, would include 330,000 square feet of space for Pace University, whose main building is across Spruce Street, and a 25,000-square-foot ambulatory care unit for NYU Downtown Hospital, which stands next door on Beekman Street.
The developers are hoping to get up to $243 million in tax-exempt Liberty Bond financing for the commercial part of the project, up to $130 million in Liberty Bond financing for the residential tower and about $10 million in tax savings for Pace, which will lease its space with an option to buy it after eight years.
The state Liberty Development Corporation is expected today to formally declare its intent to issue the bonds for the commercial portion of the project.
Cobbling together such a complex financing package for such diverse users has involved tough negotiations.
"We clearly used the carrot and the stick in order to get this done," Deputy Mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff said yesterday in a telephone interview.
"It's a very complicated deal," Mr. Doctoroff said, "but it seemed to us to make such sense to have Pace and Forest City Ratner and NYU Downtown Hospital as partners. Everybody compromised."
A key stumbling block was a kind of paradox involving Pace and NYU Downtown. On one hand, to ensure its economic health, the hospital needed to get a good price for the parking lot on which the new tower is to be built. (One bond application form put the acquisition cost at $42 million.) But the higher the development cost, the harder it became for Pace, a nonprofit institution, to afford to be a part of the project.
"While the developer was open to discussions with Pace about its tenancy, it also has an alternative, high-value development strategy involving a fully residential building," according to a memorandum from Charles A. Gargano, the chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation, to the directors of the Liberty Development Corporation.
"After protracted negotiations," the memo continued, "both sides had essentially walked away from the table and the developer was prepared to proceed with a residential deal. It was only significant pressure from the city that got the sides talking again."
What justified the effort, said Andrew M. Alper, the president of the City Economic Development Corporation, was that "you have, in one project, an awful lot of elements that all add to the recovery of Lower Manhattan." That includes 600 students in the Pace dormitory, who will "provide traffic for retailers downtown and enliven the streets."
Officials said the project would provide the equivalent of 1,546 full-time jobs in construction and development. They emphasized that no final actions had been taken yet on any of the applications. A similar point was made by David A. Caputo, the president of Pace, who said the deal awaited the approval of the university board.
In addition to the dormitory, Pace would use its space to house the Lubin School of Business, other classrooms, an art gallery, the admissions office and dining areas.
"We see this as a major reaffirmation of our investment and commitment to Lower Manhattan and also to the business and corporate community," Dr. Caputo said. "It gives a sense of an urban campus."
Forest City Ratner, which is the development partner of The New York Times Company in its new headquarters on Eighth Avenue, between 40th and 41st Streets, has kept quiet about its downtown project during the negotiations and preliminary design work.
James P. Stuckey, the executive vice president of Forest City Ratner, said yesterday that it is still too early even to say how tall the structure will be, since much depends on the layout of the apartment tower (estimated at 45 stories all by itself), the dormitory, the business school, the hospital unit and the plaza at the base of the building.
The expected action by the Liberty Development Corporation today would allow the developer to begin spending money that would eventually be reimbursable from the bond financing.
Given the involvement of Mr. Gehry, who is working for Forest City Ratner on the proposed Brooklyn arena for the Nets basketball team, Mr. Stuckey said, "We have a lot of confidence that this building will become a postcard for Lower Manhattan."
He added, "We love to do complicated projects."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
I like that just the residential will be about 45 stories tall.
According to a Globe St. article, the NYU and Pace components total 24 floors. Thus that's 69 floors so far and maybe that doesn't include the retail base.
The link to the article isn't working yet but you can read the intro.
http://www.globest.com/news/newyork/
Are they saying that this will actually consist of two towers? One the apartments and the other for everything else?
One mixed-use tower, but it will be big.
from the globest.com article...
I'm beginning to think the tower could reach 800 ft or more...maybe 500 ft for the residential top, and 300 ft for the Pace dorms and classrooms...maybe they want to top the Calatrava tower....Construction is expected to start early next year on a massive tower project that combines 24 lower floors to be used by New York University Downtown Hospital and Pace University with a residential component.
The project will receive a commercial Liberty Bond inducement of $243 million toward construction, while the proposal for the top 45 stories is currently being reviewed by New York City's Housing Development Corp. for residential Liberty Bonds.
Good. Nothing like a renewed skyscraper race to get Downtown booming again.
Couldn't have said that any better-I've been waiting for this kind of action in Downtown for a while now, and I couldn't be more pleased at the way things are headed.Originally Posted by NYatKNIGHT
Downtown Express
Suggestions for Gehry
In a July 27 resolution, Community Board 1 suggested ways to mitigate the impact of the 53-story tower planned for the N.Y.U. Downtown Hospital parking lot at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge.
The mixed use tower, to be designed by Frank Gehry, will house 25,000 square feet of outpatient hospital offices, 125,000 square feet for Pace University’s Lubin Business School and an art gallery, a 600-bed dormitory for Pace, up to 550 rental and condominium apartments, ground floor retail and underground parking for 350 to 400 cars.
The resolution said that shifting the building’s footprint east would create a needed buffer between the tower and the residential buildings at 140 and 150 Nassau St. Another recommendation included building two towers with a view corridor in between, to allow for more light and air for Nassau St. residents.
The area around the lot, bordered by Spruce, Beekman, Nassau and Gold Sts., is already too congested, the resolution stated. One way to ease the traffic in an area that includes a hospital and a firehouse would be to increase the amount of green time at the traffic light at Beekman and Park Row for traffic heading west on Beekman, the resolution said. Another way would be to reverse Spruce St., it said.
Some action must be taken to ease the burden on the surrounding community, board members and local residents said.
“You can’t have as a result a building that alienates the community from the hospital and Pace,” said Madelyn Wils, chairperson of C.B. 1.
http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_65/downtownlocal.html
What happened to 69 floors?
Nothing says it still won't be.What happened to 69 floors?
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