UPDATE MAY 14th:  at Wednesday’s CB2 hearing, it was revealed that in addition to illegally leasing this space for a restaurant last year, TF Cornerstone also ripped out all of the infrastructure necessary to maintain a meatpacking operation – the freezers, the rails, etc.  Without this infrastructure, it would require a prohibitive capital investment for anyone to move a meatpacking business into this space. Thus, at the very time that TF Cornerstone was legally required to make “best efforts” to find a meat market tenant for this space, they in fact did the very opposite and took action that made it impossible to lease the space to a meatpacker.

Anticipating that CB2 would vote to reject their  application, TF Cornerstone requested that the vote be postponed for a month, presumably to give them time to attempt to negotiate with the community.  Stay tuned!

——-

The owner of the West Coast Apartment building (the entire block bordered by Horatio, West, Gansevoort, and Washington Streets) is applying to change a restrictive declaration that currently limits uses in the northwest corner of the ground floor of that building to meatpacking and light industrial uses only.  We believe that meatpacking uses are still viable in this space, which was occupied by Weischel Beef until 2012 – in fact, the meatpacking coop one-half block to the north is currently full up.  

However, IF the city concludes that meatpacking uses are no longer appropriate, then it’s essential that any changes to the restrictive declaration work to benefit the community as well as the property owner.   Come tell Community Board 2 that if the restrictive declaration is changed, then it should allow only cultural, educational, or community uses by non-profit organizations in this space.  Possibilities would include a non-profit art gallery, non-profit theater space, non-profit bookstore, non-profit day care or nursery school, or space for community organizations.

The community doesn’t need more luxury retail or high-end restaurants.  The community does need spaces where non-profit arts, educational, and service organizations can flourish. The property owner negotiated this restrictive declaration in return for an extremely lucrative rezoning.  The owner has already made a huge profit from this deal, and there’s no reason that he should be now be entitled to get market-rate rents in this space for uses that won’t benefit the community.

The CB2 Land Use Committee will be this coming Wednesday:
Wednesday, May 11th, 6:30 PM
Village Community School, 272 W. 10th St., Auditorium 
(between Greenwich and Washington Streets)

The facebook event is here.

Some additional facts:

When Rockrose Development Corporation obtained a 1984 rezoning to allow the conversion of the old Manhattan Refrigeration building complex into the West Coast Apartments , the community negotiated several restrictive declarations in return.  One of these declarations mandated that 4700 sq/ft of ground floor space and 3500 sq/ft of basement space at the NW corner of the building (the corner of West Street and Gansevoort Street, now across from the Whitney Museum) be reserved for meat market uses.

Last year, the current owner of the building (TF Cornerstone)  tried to ignore the restrictive declaration by illegally leasing this space to a restaurant; we stopped them when they tried to apply for a liquor license.  The City should not reward TF Cornerstone  for its illegal behavior by now granting them the ability to make unlimited profits from this space.  TF Cornerstone still wants to put a giant  restaurant into this space; the late-night noise and congestion that such a huge operation would bring to our community would be unacceptable.

The lobbyist that TF Cornerstone has hired to push this application is James Capalino, who  has been involved in other attempts to remove property restrictions which were intended to  benefit the community.  He represented the companies involved in the recent Rivington Street nursing home scandal; he is also the lobbyist for  Aurora Capital, which has said that it will apply to change the restrictive declaration limiting uses on the site of its massive Gansevoort development project.

This hearing is an opportunity to send a message that the community must be fully engaged in the process of negotiating any future attempts to change restrictive declarations, such as the one governing Aurora’s Gansevoort site, and that any changes should  only be permitted if they benefit the community and the community agrees to them.

This coming Thursday, May 12th, the Community Board 2 Landmarks Committee will be hearing an application to build a huge addition on top of the existing one- and two story buildings at 85 Jane Street. The result will be a new 80 foot tall structure (plus mechanicals) mid-block on landmarked Jane Street between Greenwich and Washington Streets in the heart of the West Village. This is the old Pro Piano location – see the photo above.  

UPDATE MAY 10TH:  WE HAVE JUST LEARNED THAT THIS PROPOSAL ACTUALLY CALLS FOR TWO 90-FOOT-TALL SLIVER TOWERS (including mechanicals), one made of glass and the other of concrete!   The proposed uniform 41-foot-high street wall running the entire length of the property is also an issue.  At an invitation-only meeting with a few community residents to review the proposal, the owners refused to reveal their names and would not allow residents to take any photos of the plans.  Furthermore, the owners have hired lobbyist James Capalino, a long-time community adversary and major de Blasio fundraiser, to push the city to approve the project.  Capalino also represents Aurora Capital’s massive Gansevoort project.

Please come to the CB2 hearing to learn more about this proposal and to tell the Community Board that new structures of this size are completely out-of-character with the Greenwich Village Historic District and should be rejected!

The hearing will be held:
Thursday, May 12th, 6:30PM
NYU Silver Building, 32 Waverly Place, Room 520
(near the Northeast corner of Washington Square Park)

The facebook event for the hearing is here.  Please invite your friends.

If you want to help stop this proposal, please contact preserveJaneSt@gmail.com

The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation has prepared an excellent history of the two buildings currently on this site.  Read it here.

See you at the hearing!

A huge controversy is swirling around New York City’s decision to lift a deed restriction and allow the conversion of a lower east side nursing home to luxury condos in return for a $16 million fee.  It’s been a major embarrassment for the city, and Mayor de Blasio says he is furious that the deal was allowed to happen.

What’s the connection to Aurora Capital’s proposed massive Gansevoort Development project?  High-priced lobbyist James Capalino worked for both seller and buyer in the nursing home transaction; James Capalino is also working for Aurora Capital to push their Gansevoort plan through City Hall.  Additionally, Aurora hopes to lift or amend a restrictive declaration on the Gansevoort property which prohibits office use.

The news first broke in the March 26th  Daily News, which wrote:

A powerful lobbyist steered $50,000 in donations to Mayor de Blasio after pressing the city for a deed change that allows one of his clients to turn a building restricted for use as a nursing home into luxury condos.

Since October lobbyist James Capalino has collected $40,000 in checks for de Blasio’s 2017 re-election bid and personally wrote a $10,000 check in May to Campaign for One New York, the non-profit de Blasio uses to promote his causes.

Capalino represented both the original seller of the nursing home at 45 Rivington St. on the Lower East Side and the developer who will turn it into luxury condos.

On Friday the city said they were misled by a middleman in the transaction…

On March 30th, the Daily News editorialized:

Come 2014 and advances in AIDS care, the building’s owner hired lobbyist and de Blasio fundraiser James Capalino to press the city Department of Citywide Administrative Services to lift the use restrictions to pave the way for a sale…

…last May, Allure quietly agreed to sell it for $116 million to the the Slate Property Group, a condo developer also on Capalino’s client roll. The deal was contingent on getting the city to rescind restriction on the property’s use…

It could be coincidental that Capalino delivered $45,000 in campaign contributions for de Blasio’s reelection after securing that all-important $72 million signature.

Could be.

Also on March 30th, the New York Times picked up the story:

For an administration claiming to be bent on curbing gentrification, and a hands-on mayor who often demands rigorous multisignature memos for making big decisions, questions remain about how the former nursing home, known as Rivington House, came to be unprotected by the city and then sold for a steep profit. Questions have also arisen about the role of the city’s leading lobbyist, James F. Capalino, who, at different points, came to represent the initial seller and final purchaser of the property…

In seeking to secure the deed change, Village Care had a powerful ally in its corner: Mr. Capalino, a fund-raiser for Mr. de Blasio whose firm earned a record $12.9 million lobbying City Hall in 2015.

Mr. Capalino had been hired in 2013 through October 2014 to push for changes to the Rivington House deed. Village Care had bought the building from the city in 1992 with the permanent restriction on its use, and had cared for patients with H.I.V. and AIDS…

In April 2015, before Allure’s sale of the building, Mr. Capalino began representing Slate Acquisition, the developer that would buy the property from Allure Group, though its contract did not cover lobbying related to 45 Rivington Street.

In a subsequent interview with The Lo-Down, James Capalino denied any role in the fiasco, stating that his contract with Village Care was terminated before any deal was reached with the city, and that his contract with Slate Acquisition did not include any work on the nursing home deal.  But Capalino then went on to make this astonishing statement about his role as a lobbyist:

If there are people out there, however misguided, who are prepared to insinuate that my raising money for a mayor who I have supported since he became a candidate, that it represents some question about my personal integrity or the integrity of my firm, it’s just not worth it. (As a) result of less than highly professional journalism over the course of the past week, I have been subject to grossly inaccurate and grossly unfair representations about the conduct of my firm and what our intentions were. If it’s necessary to create basically a Chinese wall between our role as lobbyists and my Constitutional right to raise money for a public official, I guess I might have to consider doing that.

It might not be obvious to Jim Capalino, but, yes, erecting a “chinese wall” between his attempts to influence city government and his donations of  tens of thousands of dollars to Mayor de Blasio would be a very good idea indeed.  Of course, doing so might also make some of those donations rather pointless and simultaneously reduce his much-vaunted influence.

City Comptroller Scott Stringer, NY State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (read the Wall Street Journal report), and now US Attorney Preet Bharara (read the Gothamist report) have all opened investigations into the sale of the nursing home and the  lifting of the deed restriction.

We recently wrote about Aurora Capital’s and Gottlieb Real Estate’s efforts to evict thriving businesses from the block of  Gansevoort Street that would be the site of their massive development plan (see Aurora and Gottlieb Creating “Intentional Blight” on Gansevoort Street?).  The result is to make the street look increasingly derelict in what may be an effort to undercut support for its preservation.

Add one more business to the list.  The highly popular Gansevoort Market – a food market with a wide selection of food purveyors and stalls  –  has now been forced to shut down:

The Gansevoort Market during happier days, just two months ago:

At the Landmark Preservation Commission’s February 9th public meeting on 46-74 Gansevoort Street, the commissioners  took the developers’ argument to its logical conclusion (see our earlier report). They said that if the developers replaced the low-scale market buildings at 60-68 Gansevoort with  a new structure intended to replicate the previous tenement buildings on that site, then the new structure should not be taller than the tenement buildings it is supposedly intended to replace.

With the assistance of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, we have now researched Department of Buildings records for these tenements (photos show that all were approximately the same  height).  Alteration Permit 2245-1916, Alteration Permit 2246-1916, and  Alteration Permit 680-1922 – for 60, 64, and 70 Gansevoort Street respectively – all list the heights of the tenement buildings as 50 feet.  Moreover, the heights listed on these permits generally include cornices.

Therefore, any new structure that the LPC approves at 60-68 Gansevoort Street should not be higher than 50 feet tall, INCLUDING THE CORNICE.

The developers’ own logic would argue that the new building at 70-74 Gansevoort should also be no higher than the tenement buildings previously on this site.  However, the commissioners indicated that the new building at 70-74 Gansevoort should be considered a “loft-style” building, and that its height should be characteristic of other loft style buildings in the Gansevoort Market Historic District.  There are seven such buildings; their heights range from 38 feet to 74 feet, including cornices.  The average height of the seven buildings is about 55 feet,  including cornices.   We believe this is the upper limit of what should be allowed at 70-74 Gansevoort Street.

These heights are significantly lower than those of the buildings that the developers originally wanted to build.

Our lawyer has sent the following letter to the Landmarks Preservation Commission:

The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation has also sent an excellent letter to the Landmarks Preservation Commission making similar points.

Will the LPC stand firm and insist that the developers respect these height limits?  Stay tuned.  The developers will have to present his revised plans at a future LPC public meeting. We’ll get the word out as soon as that meeting is scheduled.

There’s good news and bad news from last Tuesday’s Landmarks Preservation Commission meeting on the proposed massive Gansevoort development project.  A big thank you to everyone who wrote emails or attended the meeting!  The LPC says that In the week leading up to the hearing  they received an incredible 820 emails opposing the project, and over 30 community residents were in the audience to listen to the commissioners’ discussion (the public was not allowed to speak at this meeting).
 
At the first LPC hearing (last November), 150 people packed the meeting room in opposition.  So many people testified against the project that time ran out and the hearing was adjourned before the commissioners had any opportunity to ask questions or make comments.  We were left with no idea about what they thought of the proposal.
 
At Tuesday’s meeting, the commissioners finally had a chance to speak.
 
First, the bad news.  With one exception, the commissioners unfortunately bought the developers’ argument that it was acceptable to replace existing one- and two-story market buildings on the Gansevoort block with new structures that replicated the size of the tenement buildings which had previously stood on the site.  It is very disappointing that LPC is apparently willing to sacrifice the last intact block of one- and two-story market buildings in the Gansevoort Market Historic District. (Read our statement rebutting the developers’ arguments here, and also the response by Gregory Dietrich Preservation Consulting here.)
 
Now the good news.  The commissioners heard our concerns about the height and scale of the proposed project.  First, they took the developers’ argument to its logical conclusion, and said that if the developers replaced the low-scale market buildings at 60-68 Gansevoort with  a new structure intended to replicate the previous tenement buildings, then the new structure should not be taller than the tenement buildings it is supposedly intended to replace.   This means a significant reduction in the height of  the proposed new building.   The setback 6th story will have to be  removed (which will lower the building by 15′), and the remaining structure will then have to be further reduced in height.

The commissioners also told the developers to remove the two setback stories from 74 Gansevoort Street (lowering the building by 29′).    In addition, the commissioners   expressed concern about the size of the new structure even with the two setback stories removed, and told the developer to “scale back” the building.  Both the developer and the commissioners describe the new building planned for 74 Gansevoort Street as a “loft-style” building; such buildings are typically much lower than the structure currently proposed.

We’ll present more details about this shortly, and we need to make sure that the commissioners follow through and not approve any revised plan that fails to meet the requirements they described at Tuesday’s  meeting.

Additionally, the commissioners said that the height of the new building planned for 50 Gansevoort Street should be substantially reduced, and several commissioners said they would like to see this building not exceed two stories.
 
The LPC asked the developers to revise their project to take the above considerations into account.  When the developer completes these revisions (probably in 1-3 months), the LPC will hold another public meeting to consider the revised plan.  At that future meeting, LPC will have the option of either voting to approve the new plan or sending it back to the developers for further revisions.
 
Video of the hearing can be viewed here.  Stay tuned for more info!

Waiting for the hearing:
In the hearing room:

The LPC commissioners ponder the Gansevoort development proposal:

The Landmarks Preservation Commission will be holding its next public meeting on the proposed massive Gansevoort development this coming Tuesday, February 9th, at the same location as the previous hearing:

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9TH, estimated time 11:15 AM (however, LPC recommends arriving by 10:15 to be safe)
1 CENTRE STREET, 9th Floor (at Chambers Street).  Entrance is at the south end of the building.

We anticipate that the Commissioners will question the developer, ask him to respond to the public comments, and then ask the developer to make revisions to the proposal. Whether those requested revisions will be significant is the big question!

The public will be able to attend (but not speak at) this meeting. WE NEED A GOOD TURNOUT TO REMIND THE COMMISSIONERS HOW STRONGLY THE COMMUNITY OPPOSES THIS MASSIVE DEVELOPMENT. We will have stickers so that the commissioners know that we want this project stopped.

Whether or not you can attend the meeting, please send an email to LPC right now telling them why you oppose this project!

The facebook event is here.

See you at the meeting!

The Landmarks Preservation Commission will be holding its next meeting on the massive Gansevoort Development project Tuesday, February 9th.  It’s important that they receive as many emails as possible reminding them how strongly our community opposes this project (copies will also be sent to our  local elected officials).  Please send a message now (and please send this message even if you have already signed our petition)!

Dear Chair Srinivasan, 

I strongly oppose the proposal to transform the scale of Gansevoort Street and profoundly alter its market character.  The planned 120′ and 98′ tall structures would be grossly out-of-scale and out-of-character with this block and the surrounding market buildings. 
 
In 2003, the Landmarks Preservation Commission chose to landmark Gansevoort Street in its current low-scale market configuration, the form in which it has existed for the past 75 years.  The Commission did so for good reason.

 

The LPC’s designation report is clear: the Gansevoort Market Historic District – and the Gansevoort block in particular – was designated to preserve the area’s unique market character and history.  The Gansevoort block is the only remaining intact block consisting entirely of one- and two-story market buildings in the Historic District.
 
The 1930’s alteration of the Gansevoort buildings from residential to low-scale market structures, as the designation report explicitly states, represents an essential phase in the district’s history: a time when the market expanded due to innovative new transportation projects and great economic change.  The market buildings of the Gansevoort block in their current form exemplify precisely the history and character that the Landmark designation is intended to protect.  They should be preserved for posterity, not demolished or transformed beyond recognition.


 
Additionally, let’s get the facts straight.  The developers’ proposed structures would be nearly twice as tall as the 5-story tenements they claim they wish to replicate.  The pre-1930’s buildings were almost certainly no higher than 60′.  The new structures would be 98′ and 120′ tall (including mechanicals).  This is in part because the new structures would be 6 and 8-stories tall, not 5-stories, and partly because of the new structures’ extremely large 14-15′ floor-to-ceiling heights.

I urge you to reject this misguided plan.
 
Sincerely,

The Gansevoort Street developers claim that their plan to demolish two buildings and build massively tall new structures is historically appropriate because it would restore Gansevoort Street to its pre-1930’s residential architecture.  This misleading argument is clearly driven by their desire to permit the largest and most profitable buildings on this site.  In 2003, the Landmarks Preservation Commission chose to landmark Gansevoort Street in its current low-scale market configuration, the form in which it has existed for the past 75 years.  The Commission did so for good reason.
 
The LPC’s designation report is very clear: the Gansevoort Market Historic District – and the Gansevoort block in particular – was designated to preserve the area’s unique market character and history.  The Gansevoort block is the only remaining intact block consisting entirely of one- and two-story market buildings in the Historic District.

The 1930’s alteration of the Gansevoort buildings from residential to low-scale market structures, as the designation report explicitly states, represents an essential phase in the district’s history: a time when the market expanded due to innovative new transportation projects and great economic change.

The designation report states that “one of the district’s unique qualities is that earlier buildings were retained and altered to market uses.”  The designation report further states that in the 1930’s, “The unusually wide Gansevoort Street assumed its distinctive character of low-rise market buildings with metal canopies at this time, largely through such newly-adapted structures… [as] No. 60-68 (five 1880-81 tenements), reduced to a two-story market building in 1940.”  As the designation report  emphasizes, “The market buildings in the Gansevoort Market Historic District are among the last remaining examples of this once-popular building type in Manhattan.”  The market buildings of the Gansevoort block in their current form exemplify precisely the history and character that the Landmark designation is intended to protect.  They should be preserved for posterity, not demolished or transformed beyond recognition.


 
Any changes to this block must be in keeping with the characteristics described in the designation report.  The developer can’t just randomly pick any period from the district’s past as the basis for his proposal.  Otherwise, one might equally well argue that the street should be restored to Indian Long Houses, which are what stood in this location when the village of Sapokanican existed on this very site in the 17th Century:

Furthermore, let’s get the facts straight.  The developers’ proposed structures would be nearly twice as tall as the 5-story tenements they claim they wish to replicate.  The pre-1930’s buildings were almost certainly no higher than 60′.  The new structures would be 98′ and 120′ tall (including mechanicals).  This is in part because the new structures would be 6 and 8-stories tall, not 5-stories, and partly because of the new structures’ extremely large 14-15′ floor-to-ceiling heights.  (Because of these tall floor-to-ceiling heights it’s highly misleading to describe the new structures in terms of the number of stories they contain.)

Please send an email to the Landmarks Preservation Commission asking that they honor the history of Gansevoort Street and preserve it as a low-scale market street.

For more information, please see The Wrong Plan in the Wrong Place.

The companies behind the massive Gansevoort development proposal have been conducting a “push-poll” in an attempt to drum up support for their beleaguered project.
 
A “push-poll” is a telephone campaign in the form of a public-opinion survey designed to sell a certain product or idea (or political candidate).  The questions are heavily slanted in order to suggest a particular viewpoint and to push people to answer in the way that the entity paying for the “poll” wants them to answer.
 
According to one neighbor who got in touch with us after being called by the push-poll, eight or nine questions were designed to convince her that  Gansevoort Street should be returned to the configuration it had before buildings were converted to market use around 1939 – ie, the buildings should be made much taller than they are now.  (Of course, no mention was made of the fact that they were landmarked in their current, market-style form.)  Our neighbor says that the interviewer asking the questions just wouldn’t let go of this idea, and pushed her multiple times to agree with it; it was practically impossible to get through the poll without eventually giving the answer that the developer wanted to hear.
 
Our neighbor also said that several questions focused on the ‘run down’ condition of the existing buildings, and wouldn’t it be good to renovate them and make Gansevoort street a vital commercial/retail area?  (Needless to say, everyone is in favor of renovating the existing buildings; this is a completely separate issue from whether or not one approves of the developers’ plan to demolish two of the buildings, build a new 120′ structure, and construct a massive addition on top of one of the remaining existing buildings.  Additionally, as we recently reported, the developers are currently evicting long-standing tenants in an effort to make the area appear as run-down as possible.)
 
At the end of the poll, our neighbor says she was asked a number of questions about her ethnicity, political beliefs, and income level that she  thought were completely inappropriate and intrusive.
 
The Villager newspaper has just run an article about the “push-poll,” reporting that multiple residents had experiences similar to our neighbor’s.  After the article went to press, an online addendum was added in which a spokesperson for the developer responded  to the Villager’s claims by saying that the poll was “market research” and that it showed “local residents support the redevelopment initiative by a 4-to-1 margin.”  When the Villager  reporter asked what questions were in the survey, the developer’s spokesperson refused to answer, claiming that the questions were “proprietary.”
 
Exactly why won’t the developers release the questions from this “poll”?  What are they trying to hide? 
 
And if local residents really support this project by a 4-1 margin (heck, if there are any local residents at all who support this project), why did 100 people turn out for the Community Board hearing and not a single person spoke in favor of the plan?  Why did 150 people turn out for the Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing, and only two persons spoke in favor of the project – one of whom was a Gansevoort St. property owner who clearly wants to develop his own property, and the other turned out to be an employee of the developers?
 
If you were contacted by the “push-poll,” we’d like to hear from you.  Please write us at savegansevoort@gmail.com

Read the entire Villager article about the push-poll here.

Update 1/26/16:  DNA Info now has a story on the poll, based primarily on info provided by the developers.  Of course, the developers continue to refuse to release both the questions from the poll and the script used by the interviewers.

Update 1/27/16:  And now the Real Deal weighs in, with an excellent article titled “Aurora, William Gottlieb Under Fire for Gansevoort Redevelopment Poll.”

“One resident, who’s lived on West 12th Street since 1982, told The Real Deal that one question presented the issue in extremes, asking if he’d prefer decrepit buildings or ones that honored the historical significance of the neighborhood. Another resident, Ruth Halligan, said that even though she opposes the proposed project, the questions were intentionally difficult to answer in the negative. She said while the pollsters didn’t say who commissioned the survey, it became very obvious that the developers were behind it.
If it was a push poll, it may have backfired.”

 Love the photo Real Deal chose to illustrate the piece: