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Hotel
Design Is Praised and Approved
by Barry
Owens
The commissioners'
comments were effusive, the vote unanimous, and architect David Rockwell
pronounced himself "pleased, very pleased" as he walked out of
the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) chambers last month. The architect
had just won approval from the commission to tack another story onto his
design for an upscale hotel in Tribeca.
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"It's clear. It's strong. It's better," gushed commissioner
Richard Olcott. "Adding a floor improves the building. It's
a very handsome addition."
It was quite a turnaround for Rockwell.
In September his team had run afoul of the commission and Community
Board 1 when he requested approval for "minor changes"
to the plan that would have added two stories to the six-story hotel
planned for the corner of Greenwich and North Moore Streets. He
had further rankled the community board by skirting their input
on those revisions, which ultimately were not approved by the LPC.
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But last month, Rockwell and his clients courted the board in style.
Hoping this time for approval of a plan that includes only a one-story
addition, the architect and his team presented to Community Board
1's Landmarks Committee watercolor renderings, a model of the neighborhood
with a detailed miniature version of the boutique hotel, a full-sized
mock-up of the wooden shutters planned for the building and, for good
measure, Robert De Niro. The actor, along with partners Ira Drukier
and Richard Born, has hopes of making the hotel a destination for
long-term guests, particularly those in the film industry.
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The hotel is planned for a vacant lot at 377-383 Greenwich St.
and will be next door to De Niro's Tribeca Grill and the headquarters
of his Tribeca Film Center.
"It is hard to go against the person who laid the foundation
for landmarks preservation in this neighborhood," noted CB1's
Landmarks Committee chairman, Bruce Ehrmann, with De Niro present
in the room.
"That's my whole point," the actor said, laughing.
Still, the board in its resolution expressed concern over the building's
proposed height of 96 feet, with the additional story adding 8,500
square feet of bulk.
In speaking before the LPC at its hearing on Nov. 23, CB1 district
manager Paul Goldstein called the design a "marked improvement"
over previous submissions, but said the building would be "more
appropriate and more in context if it were compliant of the zoning."
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The Downtown Hotel group, lead by De Niro, will have to apply for a bulk
variance from the city's Board of Standards and Appeals before the project
can move forward.
The $43 million hotel would be funded with the help of $38.9 million in
tax-free Liberty Bonds.
"I'm not in the hotel business," De Niro told the LPC commissioners.
"I'm doing this because I want to make something special for the
neighborhood. I feel like, aesthetically, I've only thought about the
good of the neighborhood, even when that has meant paying for some of
the aesthetics myself."
So far, those extra details have been the difference in gaining community
and city approval for the latest version of the project.
Among the building's features are three-story skylights, bold brickwork,
depressed windows with wooden shutters and ornamental manhole covers dotting
the façade along the top story.
"Watching it emerge has been very rewarding," said LPC commissioner
Roberta Brand Gratz. "The rich detail in the brickwork, both subtle
and dramatic, is rarely done in a new building. And I'm very comfortable
with the skylights that announce quite dramatically the best of the old
with a sense of the here and now."
Commissioner Thomas Pike said the building was likely to one day be a
landmark in its own right.
All and all, it was a good day for the Downtown Hotel group, perhaps best
expressed in the sigh from the group's attorney, Irving Gotbaum, as he
made for the elevators.
"It was nice to finally hear some good comments," he said. |
