Greenwich St. Neighborhood on the Rise by Etta Sanders NoBat? SoLib? East of West? No catchy moniker has yet caught on for the area north of Battery Park and south of Liberty Street from Broadway to West Street, but developers and the city are hoping it will become one of the hottest neighborhoods in Lower Manhattan. "We're bullish about the area below the World Trade Center," said Elad Dror, director of residential properties for the Moinian Group, developers of a new apartment building in the area. With much attention focused on buildings that are coming down just south of the World Trade Center site, less notice has been taken of what will be going up. By the time the rebuilding dust settles, the area commonly referred to by city planners as Greenwich Street South may be the most altered Downtown neighborhood of the post Sept. 11 era. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) has financed an urban design study of the area, examining, among other things, its potential for residential conversions and/or mixed uses, particularly housing in areas around the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. While the city and the LMDC study and plan, two high-rise luxury residential buildings are already in the works, according to The Real Deal, a trade periodical. One of them, a 30-story condominium building, is slated to go up at 4 Albany Street, where demolition of the existing building began in late December. Dror confirmed that Moinian is planning a residential building on the site, but would give no other details. The developer has already converted three other commercial spaces in the area to create 1,200 apartments since the summer of 2000. Just to the east, at the corner of Thames and Greenwich Streets, the two-story building that housed Corbett and Conley and a Japanese noodle shop will be replaced by another 30-stories of luxury condominiums. At 120 Greenwich Street, nearly all the occupants of the 105 apartments are gone. Most moved in with two-year leases after Sept. 11 to take advantage of the Downtown residential grant program, according to Charles Cecil, managing director of Barrington Development, which manages the property. Cecil said the company plans to increase the 12-story building by roughly 50 percent and turn it into condos or a combination condo and hotel. Today, the area hardly has a neighborhood look. "It's pretty bleak,' said Susan Fox, who moved from 120 Greenwich Street last year. "There's the Pussycat Lounge and the sex shop. There's really not much there." But Dror expects that will change as more people move in. "With all the residents there, the retail will come," he said. The planned transformation of the southern stretch of West Street into a grassy boulevard could blossom into a promenade of outdoor cafes. Cecil said the neighborhood will also be boosted by the restoration of Greenwich Street through the World Trade Center site, its proximity to the financial district, and by improved transportation. Even taking into account the hundreds of new apartments already coming to Tribeca and the Financial District, the market will not be saturated with high-priced housing, he said. "If demand went down 20 percent, it wouldn't change anything." The newcomers, of course, will differ from the artists and others who pioneered the neighborhoods to the north. "Peculiar artsy types are not the ones spending $1,000 a foot," Cecil said.