CB 5 opposes Gilsey House air rights plan
The developers of a future
high-rise office building
located at 7 West 29th
Street failed to receive approval
from Community Board 5’s Land
Use, Housing, and Zoning Committee
to purchase 30,507 square
feet in unused development rights
from Gilsey House, a landmarked
former hotel at the corner of
29th Street and Broadway, for $5
million.
The resolution called to amend
Gilsey’s 1977 land use variance to
accommodate the sale and transfer
of its development rights—also
known as air rights—to commercial
developers HFZ Capital
The Gilsey House at 7 West 29th St. in Chelsea.
Group.
Gilsey House was designed by 19-century
architect Stephen Decatur Hatch and
operated as a hotel from 1872-1911. The
building then fell into disrepair over the
years while the site was used for commercial
purposes until 1977, when it was
granted a zoning use variance by the New
York City Board of Standards and Appeals
for residential use. The variance did not
assess the development rights. Building
residents at the meeting said they hoped
that air-rights transfer would relieve the
substantial financial pressure associated
with an impending $4.2 million restoration
and repair project.
But despite resident support, the resolution
failed 9-3 with board members concerned
that cashing in on-air rights is just a
short-term solution to a long-term problem.
“This is a dangerous road,” said committee
chairperson Layla Law-Gisiko
encouraging Gilsey House residents to
explore other options.
CB5 has a history of denying such applications
to protect the integrity of community
zoning regulations that may alter
the character of a neighborhood. In 2015,
PHOTO BY CHRISS WILLIAMS
CB5 disapproved a joint application submitted
by HFZ, Marble Collegiate Church
and Gilsey House that proposed HFZ’s
construction of a 64-story residential tower
under special zoning section, 74-711. This
granted both landmarks a built-in maintenance
program funded by the developers in
exchange for its air rights. CB5 approved
of the maintenance program but objected
to the type and size of development project
proposed and the resolution failed.
It was approved later by the Landmarks
Preservation Committee but withdrawn
shortly after, for unclear reasons. The
new commercial building project
does not use 74-711. Plans have
yet to be shared with CB5 as to
the total height of the project, as
developers are still in negotiations
with other lots, including Masjid
Ar Rahman, a mosque on 29th
street according to Paul Selver
of the law firm Kramer Levin.
Selver represents HFZ, Gilsey
House and Marble Church, whose
air rights have been secured by
HFZ. The acquisition of Gilsey
House’s air rights will bring the
new building to 41 floors.
“What we are proposing is to
give Gilsey House the right to be
treated exactly like the other lots,”
Selver told the committee. “They were able
to sell their development rights without
receiving the city’s permission.”
The developers advanced Gilsey House
$1.5 million of their proposed $5 million
payment, while they await the needed official
approvals from the LPC and New York
City Board, according to a spokesperson
for HFZ.
If approved, residents of Gilsey House
plan to allocate 80 to 85 percent from
the sale towards repairs and restoration
and use the remainder to defray building
maintenance costs.
Saving Chinatown artifacts from ravaged building
BY TODD MAISEL
Construction crews clad
in white Tyvek suits and
respirators formed an
assembly line Sunday from the
second floor of 70 Mulberry St.
and moved 2,000 boxes down
from the fire-damaged Chinatown
building to a waiting truck.
This was the beginning of
the end on Sunday of the long
wait by the Museum of Chinese
in America to recover 85,000
documents and artifacts from the
Chinatown building destroyed in
a 5-alarm fire in January.
Officials from the museum
were on site at 6 a.m. March 8,
accompanied by workers and
truckers from Total Environmental
Restoration Solutions
who will take the 2,000 boxes 18
miles to a facility in Westchester
County.
There, documents damaged by
water from the fire or from rainwater
that entered the building
through the damaged roof will
be frozen and the water removed
to preserve each article. It’s a
slow and meticulous process,
but necessary — according to
museum officials — to preserve
documents that would otherwise
suffer damage from water and
mold.
The building at 70 Mulberry
St., which is controlled by the
city’s Department of Citywide
Services, was the home for the
museum’s archives and a myriad
of other organizations that are
now without a home. Some of
those organizations representatives
joined members of the museum
watching the movement of
the boxes from the second floor
down a fire escape.
Only two weeks earlier, the
museum received a green light
only a day before members of the
Chinese community planned a
mass demonstration in front
of the building to get the city
PHOTO BY TODD MAISEL
to allow the removal of the
archives.
The city had maintained that
the building was unsafe for museum
officials to enter – the city
hiring contractors to clear out
debris from burnt out third and
fourth floors, where the roof was
partially missing. Workers were
able to clear some of the heavier
debris to take pressure off lower
floors and prevent ceiling collapses
into the museum storage
areas on the second floor.
In addition, the building is
believed to have asbestos in the
walls, so workers are suited to
protect them from exposure.
Nancy Yao Maasbach,
president of the museum, stood
outside the wall-off site, wearing
her own Tyvek suit and mask in
preparation to view the contents
of some of the boxes when the
trucks pull out of the construction
site. She and several other
members of the museum prepared
to review the boxes and
examine some of the more damaged
artifacts.
“We wanted to check out
what was coming out and get a
sense of things,” Maasbach said,
complaining that she and her colleagues
couldn’t even find a cup
of coffee at that hour. “One of the
guys working there took bunch of
photos, ran out and said, ‘here we
started!’ That was nice of them
– everyone involved knows how
important the collection is.”
More at amny.com.
4 March 12, 2020 Schneps Media
/amny.com
