Building on Hospital Site to Be 75 Stories

 by Barry Owens

Developer Bruce Ratner has plans to build a 75-story apartment building on the lot next to NYU Downtown Hospital at Beekman, William, Spruce and Nassau streets. That is 20 more stories than he first proposed five months ago and a galling prospect for those who live nearby.
The parking lot beside NYU Downtown Hospital is to be the site of a 75-story residential tower. Pace University and the hospital will use the building as well. Photo: Allan Tannenbaum

“Damn it, they shouldn’t just tell us what they’re going to do—they should ask us,” said Paul Epstein, whose apartment at 150 Nassau Street overlooks the site.

Last month, residents of Southbridge Towers, an apartment complex near the lot, voiced their concerns over the height of the building and the lack of community space built into the plan.

Community Board 1 was more specific, drafting a resolution condemning the height and calling for the inclusion of a 50,000-square-foot community space with a gym and swimming pool.


And City Councilman Alan Gerson upped the ante by threatening to file a lawsuit on the grounds that the city bypassed City Council review when it approved modifications to the Land Disposition Agreement governing the site.

Earlier in the month, Epstein and other community representatives met privately with Ratner and officials from the hospital and Pace University, which will get space in the building, in hopes of hammering out a deal that would give the community a public amenity and soften the impact of the project.

Epstein declined to elaborate on the negotiations, saying only that there has been “progress on a number of issues.” But he said he was angry that the city had allowed Ratner to circumvent the public review process.

“The parties involved here have been forced to privately recreate what should have been done publicly,” he said. “And that ain’t right.”

Robert Bonvino, vice president for government relations and corporate development at NYU Downtown Hospital, said that the hospital had been open with the public about its plans, and held little influence on the amount of community space to be included in the building.

“After we sell the parking lot, we have a 25,000-square-foot space in that building for a hospital outpatient facility,” Bonvino said. “Other than that, we don’t really have a say.”

The financially struggling hospital agreed to sell the lot to Forest City Ratner in an effort to recover from years of financial losses. The developer did not return calls for comment.

Ratner’s plan calls for a condominium tower that will provide space for the hospital and 330,000 square feet for Pace. The university will house dormitories, a business school, offices and an art gallery in its portion of the building.

“We’re not against a community amenity,” said Daniel Slippen, director of the Center for Downtown New York at Pace. “We have been trying to work with the community to maximize use of our current facility.”

The building plan, still in the early design stages, has not been made public. According to a story in the New York Times, the design by architect Frank Gehry features undulating sheets of glass hanging like drapes over the structure of the building. The glass peels away from the building to form a crown of sorts on top.

So far, the only concession Ratner has made to the community is an agreement to create a 1,300 square-foot plaza that will act as buffer between the new building and 140 and 150 Nassau Street.

“We’ve had a long history with plazas in this district,” said CB1 District Manager Paul Goldstein. “They have some value, but it’s limited.”