Posted Jun 7, 2019, 12:14 AM
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New Yorker for life
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Borough of Jersey
Posts: 51,862
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https://www.crainsnewyork.com/real-e...r-office-tower
Locals suspect church plan is back door to larger office tower
June 6, 2019
RYAN DEFFENBAUGH
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The applicant says it is a minor variance for a small change at a landmarked church. The community board fears it's a back door to a blockbusting tower.
The conflict spilled into view Wednesday night as the land use committee at Manhattan Community Board 5 recommended the city reject an application for a variance from Marble Collegiate Church in NoMad.
The variance itself is small: It would allow the church to build a roughly 1,400-square-foot connector to an office tower set to rise in the lot next door, at 3 W. 29th St. But before the city's Board of Standards and Appeals approves it, the community board said officials should demand more information on what exactly the office developer, HFZ Capital Group, plans to build.
The confusion, as described by the board, stems from reports that HFZ was considering a 64-story residential building as recently as 2016. The plan is now for a 34-story office building, which appeared as a glass tower in renderings shown to the committee last night.
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Marble Collegiate Church sold part of the land and air rights to HFZ for the project and is a partner on the venture. The church would have a new fellowship hall in the building, which would be connected to the church under the terms of the variance.
Without HFZ in the room, church representatives were left to answer for the developer's plans—and whether they might change again.
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"It is a little away from this variance strictly, but there is this big development that is going to come to our block that we have assumed at some point to be a 64-story building, almost as tall as the Empire State Building," said Layla Law-Gisiko, acting chairwoman of the committee. "We need to understand what is going to come."
Asked why the plans changed, church representative Meenakshi Srinivasan said she can speak only for Marble Collegiate on the variance, not the developer on the larger project. An HFZ representative could not be reached for comment before publication. Listings on HFZ's website brand the planned building as 29th & 5th, which it says will be marketed to technology and advertising companies.
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The BSA will have final say on the variance. The tower, as proposed, is allowed under current zoning. Community board members want the city review to take into account the entire project, not just the small connector.
"The larger issue by far is that we get this piecemeal approach and these tiny little narrow things. And then, three years later, we sneeze and we have a new 88-story tower and lot mergers that do not see the light of the day until the foundation is being laid," said Clayton Smith, second vice chair of the board. "This is our only opportunity to have a public moment to bring awareness."
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