Yesterday, the City Council approved plans for the Riverside Center, a massive development off the West Side Highway between 59th and 61st Streets. Five proposed towers will include 2,500 apartments, and developer Extell will also be constructing a 250-room hotel, 104,000 square feet of office space, a 2.76 acre park and a K-8 public school, whose construction will be shared by Extell and the Department of Education. The NY Times reports, "The vote brings to an end years of planning and dickering with community groups over the inclusion of affordable housing and a school in a neighborhood that has absorbed thousands of new residents in the past decade."
Extell's press release pointed out the new development "will replace a blighted, eight-acre parking lot, completes the Riverside South development with world class architecture master planned and designed by Atelier Christian de Portzamparc." An overwhelming concern from the local community board was that the project was too densely plotted and would close off the area to the public, not to mention repeat the "past mistakes" of construction from Trump Place, just north of the plot.
Plus many believed Extell should be contributing more for the public areas, such as school construction and to the upkeep of Riverside Park South. In the end, Extell did increase the amount of school space it would construct (100,000 square feet, while the city covers the remaining 85,000 square feet) and will "add $17.5 million to the City's $2.5 million to finish the renovation and modernization of Riverside Park South and also to renovate the West 59th Street Recreation Center." There will also be 500 affordable housing apartments, plus 1,800 parking spaces, a post office and an auto showroom.
The project, whose parcel of land was once a railyard and is now a parking lot, is start construction in 2012 and is expected to create 900 construction jobs. Extell president Gary Barnett said, “It will be the capstone for the newest and most vibrant neighborhood in the city." And City Council member Gale Brewer said:
Bringing a project of this size into reasonable compliance with the scale and values of the upper West Side has required a long process of analysis and negotiation. I do wish that this project was less dense and conformed to the 1992 square footage of 2.4 million square feet as opposed to the 3.1 million square feet that we passed...
I have been adamant that Riverside Center must not become an exclusive enclave for the wealthy. Our goal has been the preservation of the upper West Side as a vibrant, family-oriented community, cognizant of its history and values, open to all, friendly to business, eager for living wage jobs, and dedicated to a common public interest.
I believe that the concessions obtained from the developer are significant, that they advance these goals, are fair and balanced, and that they help preserve the quality of life and family orientation that has made our community so desirable for developers.
