Extell presented their revised plans for their massive Riverside Center development (on the southern end of the Riverside South development in Manhattan) at yesterday's Community Board 7 meeting.
Extell showed a new model of the planned development. The new plans fail to address any of the outstanding issues with the prior plans. The new model is just as massive as the old one, with the same number of residential units and the same trampling on the legally binding Restrictive Declaration.
As I speculated prior to the plans being unveiled, Extell simply re-arranged the space allocation on the existing footprint, making the buildings more squat (and in the opinion of several attendees, more ugly), reducing the height of the buildings on the riverfront side while increasing the height along West End Avenue.
It was announced that the ULURP process would begin in April.
CB7 has done some more work on this project, and you can see the results on the relevant part of the CB7 website. The key new items (listed on the site) are
- Core Principles and Key Recommendations, Feb 4, 2010.
- Letter to City Planning, Feb 7, 2010.
The recommendations are generally consistent with prior views of CB7, including:
- Reducing overall density by at least 20%
- Reducing the height of the buildings
- Increase public open space
- A variety of suggestions to improve environmental impact and human usability
Councilwoman Gale A. Brewer attended most of the meeting. Thank you for attending, Ms. Brewer.
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