NEW YORK CITY-Manhattan’s Community Board 2 will hold a public hearing on a rezoning proposal for the former Saint Vincent’s Hospital site that would pave the way for residential and retail uses on the east side of the West Village campus. Developer and real estate manager Rudin Management Co. Inc. is proposing a 590,660-square-foot mixed-use residential development just east of Seventh Avenue and West 12th Street that calls for seven, 16-story buildings, as well as a 564-seat elementary school and a 15,000-square-foot park. Under the plan, four existing hospital buildings would be converted for residential use, while four others will be demolished to allow for new construction to take place.
The mixed-use component of the plan is just one element of the total redevelopment for the shuttered hospital campus, which Rudin and North Shore LIJ-Health System plan to transform into a freestanding 24-hour emergency and ambulatory surgery facility. The US Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan approved a $260 million sale of the site in April, and LIJ plans to invest $110 million for the redevelopment of the landmarked O’Toole building on the West Side of Seventh Avenue into a Center for Comprehensive Care. Rudin is providing $10 million to offset North Shore-LIJ’s costs for the historic structure.
A source close to the deal tells GlobeSt.com that $525 million in construction financing has been secured for the residential portion of the plan from Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, M&T Bank and JP Morgan. The developers are anticipating a fall 2013 opening and expect the project to be completed by the third quarter of 2015.
“Whether it’s the return of emergency healthcare and additional healthcare services to Greenwich Village, the creation of nearly 2,000 construction and permanent union jobs, the retrofitting of the foundling hospital into a new, 564-seat elementary school, or the development of a residential project that will be one of the most sustainable in all of New York, this project shows what can happen when communities and developers work together towards achieving a common goal,” says William Rudin, CEO of Rudin Management Company, in a prepared statement.
But before work can take place, all necessary city and state approvals must be granted, and opposition to the plan still persists. Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society For Historic Preservation, tells GlobeSt.com that the site was originally rezoned in 1979 to allow for the construction of two large hospital buildings, which he says was done for a public benefit. “Rudin, in essence, is asking for permission to build at almost exactly the same extra-large bulk now, but for private, for-profit condo development, not for any community facility that serves a public purpose,” Berman tells GlobeSt.com. GVSHP plans to testify at the public hearing tonight. “We object to the notion that someone can come in and say, well, there is an extra-large building here that used to serve a public purpose, it is no longer going to serve a public purpose, it is going to be a private for-profit development, but basically we should be able to build just as big.”
In a company statement, Rudin says it has made “significant” changes to the project, including a near 25% reduction in the height of the residential development from 266 feet to 206 feet; the adaptive reuse of five historic buildings instead of zero; and the doubling in size from the originally proposed open space. The construction will also follow the US Green Building Council's LEED Neighborhood Development program standards.
If approved by Community Board 2, the plan will go to the City Planning Commission and the City Council next. Click here for tonight’s agenda.
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