Air rights appraisal starts ULURP AIR RIGHTS continued from p. 31
Park is expected to stay afloat. “Hudson River Park is the main outdoor attraction to Downtown West Siders,” Miller said. “It deserves our support. We should not allow our most precious resource — our children’s health and the outdoor activities Pier 40 provides — to be condemned.”
PRESERVER PRESSES CITY Meanwhile, some media outlets are saying that St. John’s Partners is being taken for a ride by the Trust, since it has agreed to pay well above market value for the air rights. However, Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, said it’s really the community that is set to lose, unless the city takes action. “The appraisal seems designed to indicate that the developer should not have to provide any additional funding, and seems intended to make it seem as though the developer is taking it on the chin with this project and making some great sacrifice,” Berman said. “In fact, the air rights transfer is part of a larger package that will exponentially increase the value of this land by significantly increasing the size of allowable development, and by changing the zoning rules to allow vastly more profitable residential and hotel development, which is currently prohibited here.
AIR RIGHTS VALUE? HUGE! “The methodology for arriving at the ‘value’ of the air rights seems questionable at best,” Berman scoffed. “The air rights are allowing the construction of an additional 200,000 square feet of highly profitable development; the only real question about the value is how much additional money will the developers make as a result? The appraisal seems to avoid answering that question.” The preservationist continued to press the city to landmark the remaining unprotected part of the nearby South Village. “More importantly, the [St. John’s Partners] ULURP is about to be certified and the public approval process about to begin, and yet there has been no movement on the long-called-for landmark or zoning protections for the nearby South Village,” he said, “nor any commitment made to limit any future use of air rights to further increase overdevelopment in the Village. “Amazingly, there has not even yet been the most basic accounting of how many air rights the 2013 state legislation created on Pier 40 or elsewhere in Hudson River Park,” he added. “ T his is yet another example of gover n ment offer ing tremendous w indfalls to deep -pocketed developers,” Ber man charged, “while the needs and desires of local com munities are being ignored.”
Big to-do over small park’s name PARK continued from p. 30
“It is a legacy to be shared and celebrated by all New Yorkers, particularly the Greenwich Village community. St. Vincent’s Hospital Park is also a fitting tribute to all who cared for the people of our great city with kindness and compassion, as well as to those who were served. The original intention to provide a site for the AIDS Memorial and to recognize St. Vincent’s Hospital side by side on these hallowed grounds should most defi nitely be honored.” Told of the new compromis name, Miranda said she spoke by phone about it with Iannucelli. “The proposed name is acceptable to her but we would hope the signage acknowledges both equally,” she said. “We also believe that the Sisters of Charity of New York should be acknowledged in a form other than the medallion. Perhaps this can be accomplished by additional signage in the park or even a garden with signage. I think it is agreed that the medallion is not very visible.” The current park does sport about half a dozen slate medallions embedded in its paving that refer to St. Vincent’s and various emergencies the hospital responded to, from taking in the Titanic’s survivors to the AIDS crisis and the 9/11 terror attack. Rudin Management, which is developing The Greenwich Lane — 199-unit high-end residential condos on the former St. Vincent’s Hospital site — also built the new park, and will additionally construct the AIDS Memorial when the steel trellis arrives from Argentina. John Gilbert, Rudin’s executive vice president, said that in negotiations four years before Rudin closed the deal to buy the hospital campus, it promised to honor the memory of St. Vincent’s. “We made a commitment to the Sisters of Charity 10 years ago in 2006, and we keep our commitments,” he said. “And we always felt the park’s name should have St. Vincent’s in it. The sisters said they want to leave TheVillager.com
a lasting legacy of St. Vincent’s Hospital — and if the hospital doesn’t get built, it’s the park.” St. Vincent’s had planned to build a new hospital tower on its O’Toole Pavilion site, but the scheme fell through not long before the hospital closed under a ton of debt. That site is now occupied by the new Lenox Health Greenwich Village 24/7 emergency department and comprehensive-care center. Rudin gave the O’Toole building free of charge to North Shore-L.I.J. Health System — recently renamed Northwell Health — plus $10 million to help the hospital chain create the stand-alone W. 12th St. Village E.D. Gilbert said the O’Toole property alone was worth about $40 million. Rudin’s cost to build the triangle park, all told, was $10 million, he said, and it will soon be given free of charge to the city. “The park will be conveyed to the city as soon as the AIDS Memorial is fi nished,” Gilbert said. “We’re happy that St. Vincent’s is in the park’s name,” Gilbert said, “and we’re very proud to be involved with the memorial.” He noted that “throughout the public process, the ULURP and on maps, the triangle park was always called St. Vincent’s Triangle Park or St. Vincent’s Hospital Park.” But he admitted that’s not a lock, since ultimately it’s up to the Parks Department to decide on park names. In addition, Rudin gave $1 million to be spread over 10 years to P.S. 41, P.S. 3 and the new P.S. 340 (at W. 16th and Sixth Ave., in the former Foundling Hospital building), for after-school programs, plus $1 million for local tenant legal services. While there might still be some disagreement on the name, one thing everyone seems to concur on is that the little park is a huge success. “I just got off the phone with someone concerned that two trees were taken out of the park,” Gilbert said on Tuesday afternoon. “The trees were dead. We’ll replace them.” May 12, 2016
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