Up for Approval: An All New Look for Old Pearl Paint Building

Left: 308 and 310 Canal Street today, as seen from Mercer Street. A mock-up constructed on top of the two buildings indicates the size of the penthouse additions that is being proposed. Right: Rendering of the proposed look of the buildings, with new storefronts and aluminum and glass two-story penthouse additions. Photo: Carl Glassmand/Tribeca Trib; Rendering: Paul A. Castrucci Architect

By
CARL GLASSMAN
Posted
Nov. 20, 2016

Say goodbye to the last vestige of old Pearl Paint.

The proposed new look for the last of the two funky red-and-white buildings that housed the venerable art supply store—unofficial Canal Street landmarks for more than 50 years—is set to go before the Landmarks Preservation Commission on Nov. 29. (Work is already far along on the condo conversion of the larger of the two former Pearl Paint buildings, at 306 Canal, which is now cream and grey and unrecognizable as its former self.)

UPDATE: The LPC has instructed the architect to rework his plan for the rooftop additions.

The 150-year-old year-old structure at 308 Canal Street, shuttered by the company in April 2014, will be combined with the building next to it at 310 Canal and developed into condominium apartments with a proposed two-story, two-unit penthouse addition. The two buildings extend through the block to Lispenard Street, where the new residential entrance at 55 Lispenard will be located. Storefronts will be on the Canal Street side.

Grayson Jordan, representing architect of record Paul Castrucci, presented the plans this month to Community Board 1’s Landmarks Committee, which roundly criticized several of the changes and voted to advise the Landmarks Commission to reject the application.

The committee took special aim at the proposed sloped, two-story additions atop the four-story buildings. They said the structures flouted the generally accepted rule that additions in landmarks districts should be barely seen, if at all, from the street.  

“So you know the Landmarks law—minimally visible,”  the committee’s chair, Roger Byrom, told Jordan. How do you just say it’s not?”

“Our approach is that it is visible and that it’s appropriate, and appropriate in scale,” Jordan replied, noting that the height is in keeping with the size of other buildings on the block.

“It’s what’s appropriate to the building,” Byrom said. “Not the block.”

The committee, while approving the renovation of the building’s existing facade, also complained that the addition’s aluminum-cladding doesn’t fit in with other buildings in the Tribeca East Historic District. They  took issue with the glass storefront windows and doors on Canal Street. And while the developer wants to remove an unneeded fire escape on the Lispenard side, the committee in its resolution called the fire escape “an important historic feature of the streetscape.”

In the meantime, the condoizing of buildings on both sides of 308-310 Canal Street is in the works. Construction is underway on the taller, five-story former Pearl Paint building at 304 Canal, with one apartment on each of the upper four floors. Adjacent to the 308-310 Canal Street project on the west side, developer Trans World Equities (also the developer of 308-310 Canal) is proposing an eight-story building, now the site of a long two-story structure at 312-320 Canal.