New 76-Story Tower Raising Concerns

By Etta Sanders
POSTED SEPT. 1, 2006

Next month Forest City Ratner will begin excavation for an 876-foot-tall apartment tower, designed by architect Frank Gehry, that will be Downtown’s largest construction project after the Freedom Tower—nearly 100 feet taller than the Woolworth Building.

The 76-story building, which is to include a new kindergarten-through-8th-grade school and a 25,000-square-foot outpatient facility for New York Downtown Hospital, will be built on what is now a parking lot bordered by Spruce and Beekman Streets. Construction may take as long as five years and require months of pounding pile-driving, according to several people who have attended meetings with the developer. That has neighboring residents, businesses, and Pace University worried. “There is a high level of concern about what six months of pile driving and five years of construction work will mean,” said David Cooper, a resident at 150 Nassau Street, whose second-floor apartment overlooks the hospital parking lot.

Forest City Ratner laid out the most detailed plans to date at a meeting on Aug. 17 with so-called “stakeholders” in the project, including Pace University, New York Downtown Hospital, residents of 140 and 150 Nassau Street and Southbridge Towers, Charles Maikish, head of the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center, and representatives of Community Board 1.

Three months of pile driving is scheduled to start by next February. The developer promised to reduce the noise by using an acoustical shroud over the pile drivers, according to people who attended the meeting. Work hours will be weekdays from 7 a.m. until 6 p.m.

The developer will describe the project and answer questions at a public meeting sponsored by CB1 on Sept. 14 at Pace University. A spokeswoman for the developer declined to respond to questions about the project.

Pace University classrooms and dormitories border the site along Spruce Street.  “We’re very concerned, as we have been since we heard about this project, about the safety and security of the Pace community throughout construction,” said Meghan French, director of community relations for the university.

After the meeting, French said she was pleased that the developer seemed open to working with the university to minimize disruption to school events.

Dr. Bruce Logan, president of New York Downtown Hospital, which sold the property to Forest City Ratner, said the impacts on the hospital from construction should be minimal because patient and operating rooms face Gold Street. This month, when the hospital opens its new emergency room, the main
entrance to the hospital, which had faced the parking lot, will move
to Gold Street.

“I think they’re going to do everything they can to make sure it doesn’t disrupt our activities,” Logan said.

At 140 Nassau Street, residents are concerned that pile driving will damage the 1880s building, which shares a lot line with the development.

“A large amount of vibration will affect a building made of bricks and mortar more than a building with a steel frame,” said Will Cosby, the co-op president. “Mortar chips and breaks.”

The residents have hired a consultant to monitor effects from the construction and are currently measuring background vibration. And there are other concerns.

“It’s the noise, the dust, the vibration,” Cosby said. “They’re digging a really big hole.”

Cooper, at 150 Nassau Street, said he had mixed feelings about how the huge new building will affect the neighborhood when it is completed. “A project that size seems out of character with the historic architecture of the neighborhood,” he said. “But I’m hopeful that over the long term the infusion of young families will bring residential amenities.”

French, of Pace University, agreed. “It’s definitely going to change the neighborhood,” she said.