Fordham Scales Back Upper West Side Plan

NEW YORK CITY-Fordham University’s planned expansion of its Upper West Side campus will be reduced in scope under a compromise plan announced Wednesday by the university and Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer. The compromise follows the three-million-square-foot expansion plan’s unanimous rejection last month by the largely residential neighborhood’s community board. Community board approval is the first step in the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure.

Under the compromise plan, the expansion would be scaled back by 206,000 square feet. This would entail reducing or eliminating floor plates and redistributing floor area to below-grade cellar space, along with reducing floor-to-floor heights of the towers planned for Columbus Avenue. However, the university still expects to expand its Lincoln Center-area campus from three buildings to 10.

The “massiveness” of the Columbus Avenue towers was a factor in Manhattan Community Board 7′s longstanding objections to the expansion plan, dating back more than three years. “The result of Fordham’s desire to maximize everything would be a ‘superblock’ without through passage or even sight lines at grade level, with buildings grossly out of scale with the rest of the Upper West Side,” according to the board’s Jan. 21 resolution opposing the plan. “On four corners, Fordham would tower over its neighbors to the west, north and east, and would extend an inhospitable Midtown ambiance to Lincoln Center. Indeed, the absence of through passage or sight lines at grade level would multiply the fortress effect of Fordham’s campus.”