Courtesy of NYU
In its first public move since withdrawing proposals to construct a 400-foot tower in the landmarked University Village, NYU unveiled its updated NYU Plans 2031 expansion project Wednesday. The university said it will be presenting its plans to the City Planning Commission and will be entering the public approval process in the coming months. The university hopes to get final approval in 2012 and begin construction shortly thereafter.
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Morton Williams Site (130 Bleecker St.)The university plans to build a 14-story, two-tiered building on the site of the current Morton Williams supermarket. The first seven stories of the building will be used as space for a public school, while the upper seven stories will be used as dormitory space for NYU students.
NYU is still uncertain whether the space will house freshmen or upperclassman students, but senior vice president for university relations Lynne Brown said the university would like to keep its freshmen as close to Washington Square Park as possible. The dorm would accommodate 160 to 170 students and occupy roughly 55,000 square feet, less than 1 percent of the total planned expansion of 6 million square feet.
The building would replace, in part, the fourth Silver Tower that would have been built in University Village had the university not withdrawn its application in November 2010.
Though the university said the move was made to consider the concerns of the community, Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation executive director Andrew Berman said the move was purely "lip service."
"The changes to the plans are the equivalent of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic," he said. "The university is still looking to add more than 2 million square feet of space to those blocks south of WSP which is the equivalent to the Empire State Building. They've really not listened to community input in any sort of meaningful way."
Zipper Loft (181 Mercer St.)Seen as the anchor of the project, the proposed "Zipper Loft," which would replace Coles Sports Center, is also expected to make up for the loss of the proposed fourth tower. As such, portions of the building will now be enlarged. The building will house faculty offices, classrooms and retail space as well as a newly renovated gymnasium that would utilize underground space more efficiently than Coles.
Brown said that as part of their application, the university is requesting permission to build a temporary gymnasium across the street in the Washington Square Village superblock. She did acknowledge, however, that this will unlikely be enough to fully compensate for the closure of Coles, and that the university is also looking to other facilities to help alleviate the burden.
The building is also expected to house a 150-bed hotel that will be available to university guests, as well as additional space for student housing. Again it is unclear who will occupy the student dorms, but Brown said that the space could accommodate up to 1,200 students. Space will also be made for a grocery store if Morton Williams decides to relocate.
Washington Square Village Superblock (Between 3rd and Bleecker streets and Mercer Street and LaGuardia Place)
NYU has modified its plans for the Washington Square Village superblock. Though the university originally planned to build a large, sloped park that would extend below ground level, called the
"Light Garden," it has decided against doing so because it is an ineffective use of space. Instead, it will create two smaller parks, built in a similar manner, directly adjacent to the two buildings they expect to build at the location.
The two buildings, dubbed "Boomerang Buildings" for their unique shape, would house classrooms below ground and faculty offices in the upper floors. Matthew Urbanski, the architect of the plans, said the shape of the buildings maximizes the amount of perimeter space available for windows, an important feature for faculty offices.
