Community Forum for Extell's Riverside Center

Elected Officials Attend CB 7 Meeting on Riverside Center

We were pleased to see that time and attention that key elected officials are giving to Extell's Riverside Center project.

Councilwoman Gale Brewer attended most of the meeting, and paid close attention to the many views expressed.

NYS Senator Tom Duane attended, in spite of a very bandaged thumb. He had to leave after awhile, but a couple of his assistants stayed for the meeting, paying attention and taking notes.

While NYS Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal couldn't attend personally, I met Lindsey Allison, her chief of staff, who attended most of the meeting with another member of staff.

The issues with this development are plain, and laid out in earlier posts in this blog. They include:

• Keeping to the density limits of the Restrictive Declaration, which is still in force.
• Extell plays games with density calculation.
• The plans violate long-standing city policies.
• Extell plans a discredited towers-in-a-park design concept by a celebrity architect.

Thank you! We appreciate it! We'll remember!

A Sanitation Garage (and Park) for Riverside Center

Michael Kramer came to the recent CB 7 meeting on Riverside Center and made a compelling presentation for an underground sanitation garage. Here is the main part of his presentation (click to enlarge):

For more information, please contact Michael Kramer, CB7garage@earthlink.net.

Meeting about Extell's Riverside Center

Park River Independent Democrats Presents

Riverside Center

(59^th to 61^st Streets at the Westside Highway)

 

Another Mega-Development Proposed for the Westside

What can the community do about it?

Meeting: January 21, 2010, 7 PM

Speakers:

Shelly Fine, former Chair of Community Board 7

Ethel Sheffer, former Chair of Community Board 7

 

Schwab House, 258 West End Avenue, (73^rd and 74^th Streets)

Refreshments to be served

Extell Breaks its Deal with the Upper West Side

A wonderful post appeared in Marta Hallowell's Huffington Post blog concerning Extell and the Riverside South/Center project.

The post is here -- please read it!

Among the things she talks about are:

The developer Extell is quietly pushing for big changes to its Riverside Center project ... any future construction was bound by a Restrictive Declaration ...  Now, after half the project is already built, Extell is trying to get out of the Restrictive Declaration. ... the Restrictive Declaration limits the developer to build no more than an additional 2.4 million sq. ft. But Extell is pushing for a variance to increase that amount to 3.1 million sq. ft.

Read her blog to understand where the above picture comes in!

CB 7 Riverside Center Meeting on Extell

There will be a meeting of CB 7's Riverside Center Working Group this Wednesday, January 13, at 6:30pm at their offices, 250 West 87th St, Manhattan, second floor. It's easy to get to, right by the stop of the #1 subway.

Please come! Why? If you're interested in Extell's plans for what they call Riverside Center, that's what the meeting is all about.

According to an e-mail I got from the Coalition for a Livable West Side, here is the meeting agenda:

1.      Anticipated certification and ULURP schedule

 

2.      Follow-up on CB7 consultants' report and meetings with Extell

 

3.      Review of major recommendations and priorities  on density, zoning, open space, site plan

 

4.      CB7 Committee assignments on housing, school, transportation

 

5.      Retail survey report

Hope to see you there!

Where is the Riverside South Implementation Task Force?

In a previous post, I referred to a decision issued November 24, 2009 by the New York court of appeals affirming that Extell and all its successors are bound by the terms of the 1992 Restrictive declaration. This decision also provided for monitoring compliance by the developer (in this case Extell), but there is no body that is currently empowered to perform this essential function!

The body that had been performing the monitoring and compliance function was the Riverside South Planning Corporation, RSPC. This role of RSPC was established in a four page Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that was not part of the Restrictive Declaration. The MOU had a sunset clause, and the court ruled that the MOU has expired, and that therefore Extell has no obligation to RSPC.

The court went out of its way to explicitly affirm the fact that the Restrictive Declaration remains in force without sunset and without limit, "binding all successors for all time -- including Extell."

In a footnote, the court describes how the Declaration would be monitored:

Under the Restrictive Declaration, the developer's
compliance with the plan is monitored by the Riverside South
Implementation Task Force, which consists of a representative of
the Mayor's office of Construction, the Director of the
Department of City Planning, another Mayoral appointee (a
Commissioner of an agency, at the election of the Mayor) and two
appointees of the Speaker of the State Assembly.

Where is the "Riverside South Implementation Task Force" today?

It appears that the RSPC was intended to play that role, but now that the court has ruled the original agreement empowering it is no longer in force, some entity (perhaps a revised or reconstituted RSPC!) needs to be empowered to play the role of monitoring Riverside South implementation.

Extell, the Carlyle Group and their lawyers know all this, of course. They know the terms of the Restrictive Declaration. They know it calls for oversight. They know the RSPC was set up to provide that oversight. When they discovered that the side letter establishing RSPC as the entity to provide that oversight had expired, the right thing to do is simple -- sign a new letter with RSPC. Instead, they shut out RSPC and said, in effect, that they could live without oversight just fine, thank you.

What they're banking on is that the Mayor and everyone else empowered by the document to appoint the overseeing Task Force will simply let the matter slide. And so far, they're getting away with it. 

Mr. Mayor? Director of City Planning? Speaker of the State Assembly? Will you please remedy this situation?

Court: Restrictive Declaration Applies to Extell

In a decision issued November 24, 2009,the New York court of appeals affirmed that Extell and all its successors are bound by the terms of the 1992 Restrictive declaration. This is an important decision because it limits the extent of what Extell can build on the property to limits agreed to with the community.

The suit was brought by the Riverside South Planning Corporation, RSPC, against Extell and the Carlyle Group, the current developers of Riverside South and RIverside Center. RSPC sued Extell and Carlyle to cooperate with RSPC per the terms of prior agreements. It lost, and appealed. On November 24, 2009, the appeals court issued its decision, affirming the lower court's rejection of RSPC's claims.

The decision was focused on a clause in a separate Letter Agreement. The court said:

In this breach of contract case, we are asked to
determine the scope of a sunset clause that appears in a 1993
Letter Agreement relating to the development of a parcel of real
property.  ...we affirm the judgment dismissing plaintiff's claim.

This is not the decision RSPC wanted to get -- I don't yet know whether this will be the end of the matter. As readers of their website will know, they have some excellent ideas and proposals. And more than their ideas, someone needs to check what the developer is actually doing and make sure it conforms to the terms of the Restrictive Declaration.

However, the sunset clause in question is not in the Restrictive Declaration -- it's in a separate 4 page Letter Agreement specifically concerning the relationship between the developer and RSPC. However discouraging it may seem, this courtroom loss is limited to obligations Extell has to RSPC. It says nothing whatsoever about Extell's obligations to the community, as expressed in the 284 page Restrictive Declaration recorded with the New York City Register.

The court's opinion makes this very clear. Here is their description of the Restrictive Declaration:

...in 1992, formal approval was obtained from the City of New
York. Penn Yards recorded a 284-page Restrictive Declaration
with the New York City Register memorializing that approval.
Having been recorded in the chain of title, the declaration
imposed numerous restrictions on the owner that would run with
the land and bind any developer as well as any successors or assignees.

This court case is not about the Restrictive Declaration, but about a later short agreement between Trump and the RSPC.

On March 31, 1993, Donald Trump entered into a four page
Letter Agreement with the RSPC to "confirm our arrangement
to continue working together."

The cornerstone of the case concerns a sunset clause:

Most relevant to this case, a sunset provision was
included on the third page of the four-page Letter Agreement

It was the sunset clause in the 4 page Agreement that was the subject of the suit lost on appeal by RSPC, not the Restrictive Declaration. So that there may be no doubt about that, the court went out of its way to explicitly affirm the fact that the Restrictive Declaration remains in force without sunset and without limit, "binding all successors for all time -- including Extell." Here is the language:

We further note
that RSPC succeeded in negotiating a Development Plan that
incorporated environmental sustainability and design criteria
and, unlike the Letter Agreement, such plan is part of the
Restrictive Declaration that is recorded in the chain of title
and runs with the land, binding all successors for all time --
including Extell. Nothing we decide today allows Extell to
unravel that significant accomplishment of the RSPC.

In summary:

• On November 24, 2009, the appeals court affirmed that Extell is not required to interact with RSPC under the terms of the 1993 letter agreement.
• The court affirmed that Extell and all its successors are bound by the terms of the Restrictive Declaration.

Footnote: What should Extell have done? Continued to cooperate with RSPC, and signed an agreement extending their relationship. It would have been a real demonstration of ethical behavior, and would have been most welcome.

Riverside South, Extell, ULURP and the City Council

Recent events have reminded us that the New York City Council has the power to stop development projects it doesn't want to see go forward. That is a hurdle that Extell and its financial backers, the Carlyle Group, will have to pass with their proposal for the completion of the Riverside South project in Manhattan. Currently they are on a collision course, with Extell demanding a dramatic increase to the legally recorded limits, and with the City Council having complete power to just say no. Which, given the history of the project and the size of the proposal, it should!

The City Council gets its power from being a key step in the Uniform Land Use Review Process (ULURP). Following is the City's diagram of just part of the process, the one relevant to recent events (click to enlarge):

You can see that, after City Planning Commission approves, the City Council can then shut down the project, essentially just because they want to. The mayor has the power to veto -- but then the Council can override the Mayor's veto.

All of which just happened with the Kingsbridge Amory project in the Bronx.

First the Council rejected the plan; then the Mayor vetoed the rejection; and finally, just yesterday, the Council overrode the Mayor's veto. Many strong feelings were expressed, both against the Council's action and in favor of it. In other cases, of course, the Council endorses large projects, as they just did for the Related Companies huge development of the railyards near Penn Station.

In the case of Extell's Riverside South development, important politicians, including the local Councilwoman Gale Brewer, have gone on record supporting the existing limits that Extell is trying to exceed. Let's hope that, when the time comes, they exercise the power they so clearly have.

Community Group: Extell Must Honor Restrictive Declaration

The Committee for Environmentally Sound Development has been working to "end endless growth" for at least the last 17 years. They just issued their December, 2009 newsletter, and devote a good portion of it to the southern portion of the Riverside South development.

The article provides a sound analysis of the current situation.

After reviewing the background, including the 1992 Restrictive Declaration that limits development on the site, the newsletter says:

It is south of 61st Street that the developer Extell wants to deviate from the 1992 agreement in order to increase density. Considering that the 1992 agreement was overly generous to development at the expense of park area this request should be unequivocally denied.

While agreeing (as everyone does) that the original plans calling for a TV studio need to be changed, the newsletter points out that:

A substitute is necessary that is not residential housing. ... The lot at 59th and West End Avenue is directly above the Amtrak Railroad and a station at that point would add to our mass transit capabilities. A ferry terminal at 59th Street and the Hudson River would encourage New Jersey residents to commute by boat instead of cars. Placing a park between these two facilities would be a delight for the neighborhood. ... the west end of the lot [could] be used as a garage for the Sanitation Department ... with a park above.

The article concludes:

If Extell can not be persuaded to adhere to the square footage set in the 1992 Agreement, then the need is great enough for the City to use the power of eminent domain to obtain this last bit of undeveloped space for a public purpose.

You can contact the Committee for Environmentally Sound Development at 212 877 4394 or Elfreud@aol.com. Consider sending a donation to support their work. The address is PO Box 20464, Columbus Circle Station, New York, NY 10023-2678.

Elected Officials Say the Restrictive Declaration Is In Force

Since 1992, the developer of Riverside South has been bound by a Restrictive declaration. In December 2008, our elected officials wrote a letter that states that the Restrictive Declaration is still in force. When push comes to shove, we hope they will maintain this position.

The letter was to the New York City Commissioner of Parks and Recreation. The main subject was the park on Riverside South, but in the course of discussing the issue at hand, they state that the 1992 Restrictive Declaration still controls the development that can take place on the property.

The effectiveness of the Restrictive Declaration is important because Extell, the current developer, is trying to put up buildings that way exceed the limits in the declaration, and is in other ways evading controls and limits that have been in force for nearly 20 years. Here is a post that goes into the subject in more detail.

Here is the header of the letter:

Here is the key sentence:

Here are the signatures:

 

Congressman Jerrold Nadler, Senator Thomas Duane, Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, and Councilwoman Gale Brewer: THANK YOU for standing up for us and confirming that Extell is still bound by the terms of the 1992 Restrictive Declaration. Extell is currently preparing plans that go way beyond the limits of that declaration in terms of density and other factors. When the time comes to act, we hope you, along with Amanda Burden, the head of City Planning, will put a stop to this excessive development.

Ask Mayor Bloomberg, the Milsteins, NYDS and Hudson Rise How to Pay for a Park

How can a park for Riverside Center be paid for? Ask the NYC Sanitation Dept., Mayor Bloomberg, HUD and the Paul & Irma Milstein Foundation.We all are longing to see a lush, green park as part of the Riverside Center development. But the realists out there want to know: how can it be paid for? There are many ways in which a park can be supported, just look around.

The NY Department of Sanitation is currently obliged to to garage our community’s sanitation trucks (CB7) in a CB4 location, because there is no room for them in our neighborhood. The lower west side has a problem with that. NYDS wants to have space designed for the CB7 trucks underneath the Extell development, where a car dealership is currently planned. They are willing to pay $384 per sq. ft. which is a good  price in today’s real estate market. The Sanitation Department has also indicated their willingness to green district garages with LEED certified standards and roof top parks. Voile. New park paid for.  To see a more thorough discussion of this, please refer to this document by Michael Kramer. (And thank you Michael for making us aware of this issue).

Also take a look at this ad by the Hudson Rise group for a fund-raising party, using some of the nabe’s celebrities as spokespersons (Kirsten Dunst, Lou Reed, William Thompson, etc).... Another idea to explore.

Readers should also be aware that yet another new park was recently formed in Tribeca. Here is a photo:

It was paid for in part by HUD money granted to refurbish lower Manhattan after the 9/11 attack, but  the Paul and Irma Milstein Foundation also contributed $500,000 for its construction, and $556,000 was contributed by the Office of the Mayor.

Funding a park can be done, my dear Riversidecentrics, we just need to be patient and find a way.

This was written by Marta Hallowell.

Extell, Riverside Center and the Restrictive Declaration

Gary Barnett's Extell Development and their financial partners for Riverside South, the Carlyle Group, are proposing a development they call Riverside Center (sites L, M and N of Riverside South) that exceeds the limits set by the Restrictive Declaration governing development on the property. In total, they are asking for more than a 30% increase in the already-too-large limits they have.

Community Board 7 has done an analysis of the differences and made them available. The full document is on-line.

The first and most important number is Total Square Footage.

• Original: 2.37 million Square Feet
• Proposed: 3.1 million Square Feet
• Difference: + 730,000 Square Feet

One of the most interesting things we have learned recently, from the Coalition for a Livable West Side, is that space was "borrowed" from the allocations for sites L, M and N and used for other buildings in Riverside South! This is a legitimate practice, but only if you subtract the space you've used from the original allocation, which does not appear to have been done in this case.We hope to make this analysis available soon.

The other dramatic change is in Residential Square Footage.

• Original: 572,192 Square Feet
• Proposed: 2.55 million Square Feet
• Difference: + 1,977,808 Square Feet

What this amounts to that they want to build about 2,500 condos in the small two block area, using a design from a famous architect but a design that is nonetheless seriously flawed. In addition, they want to build a hotel, a car dealership and 1,057 more parking spaces than were originally allotted. Too much!

Extell Avoids a Landmark, Sells to Abu Dhabi

Shortly after Extell got the City Landmarks Preservation Commission to not declare a key piece of property a landmark for its giant project across from Carnegie Hall, it sells a majority share to the investment arm of the Abu Dhabi government.

The New York Times has details of the highly politicized landmarks issue. A couple highlights:

Last week the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission voted 6 to 3 to give landmark protection to the 100-year-old B. F. Goodrich tire company building on Broadway just north of 57th Street, but not to a connected building around the corner designed by the same architect at the same time. Some commission members on both sides of that unusual divided vote cried foul, complaining that politics played an inappropriate role.

In the 2009 election cycle, Extell made campagn contributions to three of the four councilmembers who questioned the designation of both buildings, as well as to other councilmembers.

The three members of the commission who voted no to landmarking one building without the other contended that both were architecturally or historically important and should not be separated. One of them, Roberta Brandes Gratz, said in an interview that she also objected to what she saw as political pressure. “Intimidation by the City Council should not have an impact on our votes,” she said.

The National paper of Abu Dhabi has the details on the investment. Here are a couple highlights:

Aabar Investment, a company controlled by the Abu Dhabi Government, is helping fund the development of a 73-storey luxury apartment building and hotel in New York City.

Khadem al Qubaisi, the chairman of Aabar, confirmed the company had paid Extell Development for a majority stake in a project rising at 157 West 57th Street in Manhattan, just a block away from Central Park and next door to Essex House, a hotel owned by the Jumeirah Group of Dubai.

[Extell's president Gary Barnett said] "We’ve seen residential buildings selling at between $5,000 and $6,000 a square foot. Even with the current market still slow, we think it will do extremely well when it is finished.”

It appears that Extell likes its financial partners to be big and international in scope: Abu Dhabi in this case, the Carlyle Group in the case of Riverside Center.

How Much Money will Extell Collect from the IRS?

Extell, along with other companies that contributed to the real estate bubble, could collect a huge amount of money in tax refunds from the IRS under new legislation that was signed into law by President Obama.

The legislation is a give-away of previously-collected taxes to companies that are doing just fine. Nationwide, the total in tax refunds to corporations like Extell under the new law is estimated at over $30B. Will Extell use the windfall it is likely to get to give something to the community, or at least stand by its commitments?

Here are some of the highlights from the New York Times article on the subject:

But tucked inside the law was another prize: a tax break that lets big companies offset losses incurred in 2008 and 2009 against profits booked as far back as 2004. The tax cuts will generate corporate refunds or relief worth about $33 billion, according to an administration estimate.

Before the bill became law, the so-called look-back on losses was limited to small businesses and could be used to counterbalance just two years of profits. Now the profit offset goes back five years, and the law allows big companies to take advantage of it, too...

Among the biggest beneficiaries are home builders, analysts say. Once again, at the front of the government assistance line, stand some of the very companies that contributed mightily to the credit crisis by building and financing too many homes.

Pretending to promote job creation, the government is dispensing cash to companies that either do not need it or need it precisely because they didn’t run their businesses prudently. Isn’t there something wrong with that picture?

Extell's finances are not a matter of public record, so it's hard to know what the story really is. But the rules under the new law are clear: if Extell incurred losses during 2009 (which seems reasonable given their continuing construction, the slow-down in sales and Mr. Barnett's personal default on a loan), they will be eligible to get refunds of income tax they paid in past years on past profits -- in other words, the government will send Extell a check to make up for their losses. Amazing.

When Extell took over the Riverside South development, they knowingly inherited a deal with the community from their predecessors. By conforming to the limits of that deal, Extell stands to make $1.5 Billion in profit (not revenue -- profit!). But that's not good enough for them. Extell is denying the deal still restricts them, and is applying to City agencies for an increase in the footage they can build. An increase of about 700,000 square feet, which would result in additional profit of over $500,000,000.

The US government has just passed a sweetheart deal for companies like Extell that will be paid for by ordinary taxpayers.  Mayor Bloomberg, Commissioner Burden, Councilwoman Brewer, Councilwoman Quinn, please stand up for ordinary New Yorkers. Don't give Extell yet another gift by allowing them to violate the terms of their agreement with the community.

Another Comparison, and One to Make Your Mouth Water

Another alternative plan for the development of lots L, M and N on Riverside South has been put forward by the Riverside South Planning Corporation, which began as a coalition of non-profits including the Natural Resources Defense Council, in 1992. They are the 3^rd party in the 1992 Restrictive Declaration, along with City and Donald Trump (binding to Trump’s successors, currently Extell).

See the picture for a loose idea of what they envision.

As many of you know, the Hudson Powerhouse (sometimes called the IRT Powerhouse) is up for designation by the Landmarks Commission. It is a truly remarkable building, designed by McKim, Meade and White. Our sources say that there is very serious interest in acquiring the landmarked building for use as space for a community cultural center. (Only a small portion of the interior is still used by Con Edison.) There are comparable centers around the world. In Paris the Musee d’Orsay was formed out of an elegant old train station. In London the Tate Modern was formed from an old power station, one nowhere near as pretty as our own! Such spaces capture the flavor and essence of a certain period of history of the cities they represent, and make truly special cultural centers.

However, the Powerhouse would be best appreciated if there were a broad park across the street from it, thus affording a view of its length and height. The next time you walk down West End Avenue, try to picture how grand the Powerhouse would look, without the double deck of parked cars in the parking lot blocking your view. Picture it bordered by a park instead! Imagine the park as a place for people visiting something like a museum to rest after a few hours of walking and for the neighborhood to enjoy as well. Notice the long, wide sidewalk in RSPC’s plan, between the park and next to the buildings that would be permitted, and imagine the vibrant retail scene that would thrive there. The park could connect to Riverside Park South through a well-landscaped and well-lit space beneath the Miller Highway, or it could connect by being elevated over the submerged highway, another suggestion of the RSPC plan.

    The RSPC plans specifies that Extell must be held to the 2.4M square feet they were granted in the ’92 Restrictive Declaration, which would fit on the land remaining after mapping out the park. So there you have a basic strategy. A cultural center, alongside great retail; a gorgeous sunny park on one of the last wide open spaces in New York; and a limited amount of new residential development. We’ll talk more about this strategy in our next post.

This was written by Marta Hallowell.

Extell Promotes a Park, Then Changes the Subject

 

Extell spent time and money promoting a vision of Riverside South that included a full-block park adjacent to the IRT Powerhouse, similar to the one supported by RSPC. That park is now null and void, and Extell is trying to make the whole subject disappear.

Here is the story.

In 2007, Extell distributed a magazine and had a website that promoted their vision for the Riverside South development. Here is one of the pages, scanned from a personal copy (click to expand):

The picture shows a block-long park bordering the IRT Powerhouse at the southern edge of the development. Here is a blow-up of the part of the page showing the park to the north (left) of the IRT Powerhouse:

Extell no longer talks about this sensible, attractive park, and instead proposes to build a huge development (5 tall buildings comprising over 3 million square feet) that violates the agreements they inherited when they acquired the property.

Alternatives to the Extell Plan for Riverside Center

You have seen CB7’s alternative plans by now:

and you’ve seen the Coalition for a Livable West Side’s alternative plan:

Let’s do a comparison.

                The Coalition’s plans were developed by Craig Whitaker, a well respected and well known New York architect. Whitaker points out that America is a “front door” society: we greet guests at the front door, we put the holiday directions at the front door, etc. That’s where our public face is. The back door opens to more private functions, the trash pick-up, the recycling collection, the family’s casual hangout area. People are not accustomed to entering through someone’s back yard, back door, or something that feels like an alley. So retail establishments and restaurants that don’t have a front door on a good street don’t do well.

                This is why Extell’s plan and CB7’s alternative plans are likely to deliver a moribund retail community. Most of the businesses in it would face inward, toward the water feature and the center of the development. Bottom line: people won’t go back there. They won’t see it. And it will be in the shadows of the massive buildings surrounding it, making it even more unwelcoming.

                We all know that this neighborhood needs some retail, some culture, some restaurants, some mom-and-pop shops etc. to come to life.

                Mr. Whitaker's version offers 4 buildings in the corners of the site, apparently surrounded by public streets, with a north-south running park dividing them. Because of the streets, there is an improvement in terms of providing retail with more “front doors” to draw community in. But the park feels private rather than public. Mr. Whitaker even recommends that Extell raise money to maintain the park from the tenants of the buildings surrounding it, along the lines of Gramercy Park. The logical extension would be to surround the park with a fence and give the residents keys, as they do at Gramercy Park. Furthermore, the park will still be in dense shade for most of the day, giving it a hidden and unwelcoming feeling.

                City Planning prefers parks that expand along the south end of blocks, so that they can capture more sun, pleasing both to people and plants.

So although good thinking has gone into the Coalition’s alternative plan in terms of how the community would actually interact with the design, it still doesn’t deliver what most people want in a public park.

 Stay tuned for a discussion of another alternative plan that offers just that.

This was written by Marta Hallowell.

Extell Gets a Landmark Break

Here is some Extell news closely related to Riverside Center.

From Crane's New York:

"In surprise about-face, the Landmarks Preservation Commission votes to allow developer to raze building in order to make way for 1.5M-square-foot successor."

From the New York Times blog:

"The 6-to-3 vote by the commission represented an unusual instance of discord on the commission, which under the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has designated hundreds of new landmarks and created new historic districts but has still been accused of being too accommodating to developers and business interests."

This is relevant to Riverside Center because the adjacent IRT Powerhouse is getting close (we hope) to landmark status.

UPDATE: The Observer has a long and interesting article on this event. Here are a couple excerpts:

"The city's Landmarks Preservation Commission backed off its effort to landmark a B.F. Goodrich Company building on West 57th Street, a rare retreat by the commission and one that follows aggressive pushback from development giant Extell, which plans a mixed-use skyscraper on the property."

"I am appalled," Simeon Bankoff, executive director of the Historic Districts Council, said after the vote. "I don't think that the Landmarks Commission should be considering such political features in the landmarking..."

Extell Erases History, Hopes No One Notices

What do you do when you want to overcome a past whose realities you don't like? Get a new name! Among other things, it helps you erase history.

The name Riverside South has been around for some time. But it was getting inconvenient for Extell.

Here is the background and a couple interesting facts:

• There are two related, registered domains: www.riverside-south.com and www.riverside-south.org.
• This same-name, different-extension structure is pretty common for related entities. If x.com is the commercial entity, x.org is the related non-profit.
• The names make perfect sense for related, cooperating entities: .com for the developer (Extell in this case) and .org for the non-profit charged with representing community interests and overseeing the development (RSPC, Riverside South Planning Corporation).

www.riverside-south.org goes to RSPC, as you would expect. What about Extell? If you Google "Extell Riverside South," you don't find Extell's site. As far as Extell is concerned "Riverside South" is history. Now it's "Riverside Center." Sure enough, if you Google "Extell Riverside Center," their site www.riversidecenternyc.com comes up first. What's this about?

Simple. Extell would rather that people not find out about RSPC.

But if Extell's internet name is essentially the same as RSPC's, the relationship will be easy to find and will raise questions. Extell would like to bury that piece of reality.

Here is the history of www.riverside-south.org:

• If you go the the internet wayback machine (which shows you what the internet looked like at various past times), you will discover that www.riverside-south.org goes all the way back to 2003.
• The 2003 version of riverside-south.org is just a COMING SOON announcement, although it provides a pretty good little summary of the situation.
• The COMING SOON announcement stayed essentially the same for years, until finally sometime after mid-2008, the current version of the site was put up.

It gets interesting when you do the same exercise for the commercial version of the domain, www.riverside-south.com:

• Past versions of riverside-south.com only seem to go back to mid-2007, according to the Wayback machine.
• I remember clearly seeing those versions. They were attractive depictions of the wonderful, natural environment of Riverside South, with sweeping vistas of parks, water and happy, relaxed people. There were even bird songs!
• OK, I saw them, now where are they?? Well, see for yourself -- they're gone, gone, gone! The inconvenient past has been erased. Wow.
• If anyone out there has some magic that can recover this bit of the past, please contact me.
• Here's a kicker: what does the domain get you now? Well, check it out here: www.riverside-south.com.
• If you get what I get, the www.riverside-south.com will be mapped to a subject Extell likes better, and you'll get to the main page advertising the Rushmore! You don't need to believe me -- try it, you'll see!
• The domain re-direction (you type in one domain but get to another) is the erasure of history. Extell wants everyone to think Riverside Center.

This erasure of the past corresponds directly to Extell's inheriting an obligation to work with the public, non-profit entity created to oversee the development of Riverside South, namely, the Riverside South Planning Corporation. Extell broke faith with its obligation to the public; it declared it would have nothing more to do with RSPC and its obligations under prior agreements. At some point, Extell  realized that having a domain that was the same as RSPC except for .org or .com could be really embarrassing, so it dropped the website so full of promises it had intention of delivering, and just mapped it to the Rushmore. That's it!

The Extell theory of history and morals: if you find something inconvenient, delete it, divorce it, change the name, erase the history, and declare vigorously (with lawyers and celebrity architects) your version of reality.

Extell's Sleight of Hand: No Public Streets

Extell (and their financial backers, the Carlyle Group) has some pretty simple goals with the "Riverside Center" development. These goals revolve around making money (surprise, surprise!). They already own the land. It's a fixed cost. The more they can build on the land, the more they can "spread out" the fixed cost of the land over the resulting units, and the more money they can make.

This makes perfect sense, and by itself, there's nothing wrong with it. Not a thing. Really! I'm not against making money, and I'm not against others making it. Money is a nice thing to have.

However, we all agree that there are limits. Robbing people is a way of making money, but it doesn't pass muster. Recent hedge fund problems have highlighted the various ways of making money by defrauding people, and we don't approve of those either.

It gets tricky when the money-maker tries to push the edges. Like when a bunch of toughs surround a person on a lonely street and "request a donation" in a menacing way. They may argue it isn't robbery, but how would you feel if they were surrounding you?

Extell is pushing the edges in its own way, with high-priced lawyers and sheer nerve. But they don't want to seem like that at all, so they direct our attention elsewhere. Their main way of doing that now is by using a celebrity architect to make a fancy design, a design that many people genuinely like -- but it's a ruse! Its purpose is to distract us from the facts, from the fact that Extell is trying to violate prior agreements and build far more than they are allowed to build according to prior agreements and current standards.

The Coalition for a Livable West Side recently sent a clarifying memo to CB7 about Extell's plan and their alternative proposal. Here is one of the Q&A's:

If the project's streets were mapped as public, would the allowable Floor Area be reduced?

Yes. This is why the developer wants to keep streets and driveways private.  If the site is one undivided parcel the developer claims that the Floor Area should be determined based on the square feet of the entire lot.  This seeming conundrum is sometimes solved by building streets and then deeding them to the public upon completion of the project.  The developer gets a greater number of square feet and the streets are public.  With the public streets shown in the Coalition for a Livable West Side plan even 2.4 million square feet would be too much.  Therefore, some process for transferring the streets to the public is necessary.

When you look at Extell's plan, you can't help but notice that it's a "towers in a park" plan with no public streets. Is this what genius architects do? Well, maybe, but the fact is, if Extell can count what would otherwise be a normal street as buildable land, then they can build more. But they couldn't help themselves from wanting even more, of course...

Extell's Riverside Center Violates City Policies

Community Board 7 commissioned a study on Extell's plans for Riverside South. Several posts in this blog provide the context.

When you glance at the report, it seems pretty mild-mannered -- and it is! It was written by professionals who did a careful job and present their results dispassionately. But the substance of the report is a devastating analysis of Extell's plans. Their report makes the role of the celebrity architect so clear: we are supposed to be so wowed by his non-rectilinear buildings and his prizes that we somehow don't notice all the things wrong with the design.

1. The proposed design is a "tower-in-the-park," which the "City Planning Commission has worked strenuously to eliminate."

2. The Extell plan claims to have lots and lots of open park space, but it's just not true. Instead, it has "...ambiguous open space which is not clearly delineated as either public or private space, but is in fact private space"

3. "Further, by turning its back on the landmark quality Con Edison Generating Plant, it renders the adaptive reuse of this monumental structure less desirable."

4. The retail uses are contrary to both common sense and public policy. The report says that Extell's plan for retail "...is contrary to City Planning policy"

5. Instead of public streets, the design calls for private spaces. Having public streets instead of private spaces "has been City policy for some time for waterfront and upland blocks."

6. In their greed for profits, Extell has designed a space without sunlight. The design results in "extensive shadowing of the superblock’s landscaped and sitting areas for a good part of the day."

7. The buildings are designed without setbacks, in violation of policies that go all the way back to 1916. The consequences include:

• "unpleasant pedestrian-level winds"
• "making the areas adjacent to the tall tower’s shear walls unusable and sometimes dangerous"
• "these shear building walls are intimidating and are contrary to the urban design convention"

8. The length of the walls violates long-standing City Planning regulations.

So let's sum up the analysis in plain language:

Extell's plan:

Violates long-standing City Planning Commission standards on several grounds.

Turns its back on the IRT Powerhouse.

Converts public space to private use.

Is bad for retail.

Creates a space that will be dark and dangerously windy.

What more do you need to know?

Celebrity Architect: Great for Extell, Bad for New York

Extell Development Corporation is pulling out all the stops in its effort to generate some mega-profits in these tough times. These profits hinge on getting permission from the City to violate the deal for the land they inherited when they bought it.

In addition to having a mercenary army of suits who attend community meetings, they decided some time ago that having a Pritzker Prize-winning celebrity architect design their monster project would distract people from noticing that it:

• Lacks schools for all the new families
• Has no true public space
• Violates past and current guidelines for density
• Detracts from the nearly-landmarked IRT Powerhouse next door.

Noticing that people weren't immediately demonstrating in favor of the project (to put it mildly), Extell decided to have their celebrity come to town and give a talk. Here is the report on the talk in The Architect's Newspaper. As the article says,"Portzamparc’s plan is already facing skepticism from locals, and not only because it is 800,000 square feet larger than previously allowed." However, the article is amazingly pro-Extell, quoting a CB 7 member who sounds favorable to the project, even while CB 7 as a group has gone on record with serious objections, in a letter to Amanda Burden, the head of the City Planning Commission dated January 14, 2009.

The meeting also got some attention in Curbed. The comments on the article are worth scanning. Here are a couple highlights from frequent commenters:

"The NIMBYs actually seem to get it right for once. Bravo to them. Portzamparc's towers in the (portzam?)park are DOA. They'll be litter-strewn, awkward barrenlands half of the year, just like the Frederick Douglass Houses they seem to be inspired by. I hope Extell/Christian pay attention to the NIMBYs this once."

"The Christian de Portzamparc plan is abominable, but the alternative ideas need more thought. ... But God forbid that Extell builds its proposed plan. That's the worst of the lot."

Extell's Gary Barnett says: Trick or Treat!

Gary's Barnett's Extell Development, along with its partner and financial backer the Carlyle Group, says "Treat or Treat!" He's not wearing a scary costume (though he probably should), and he doesn't mean exactly what the costumed kids seeking some fun and a sugar rush mean. Here's what he means:

• The trick is on you!
• • If you put a deposit down on a condo in one of his Riverside South buildings and the time for occupancy passed, after which you could rightfully get your deposit back (according to the condo documents filed with the NY State AG's office), well, the trick is on you! You poor stupid buyers, didn't you know that was a typo? Didn't you know what we meant? Sorry, too bad -- we're keeping your deposit. Want it back? Sue me.
  • If you depended on the limits on development for Riverside South which Extell inherited when they bought the land, well, the trick is on you! Riverside South Planning Corporation and its seven non-profit backers? Get out of my way! I'm going to build way more than the documents say I can build.
• The treats are for me!
• • Hundreds of millions of dollars of additional profits! Too bad for you, community -- you should have been tough and smart like I am.

Trick or treat!

Extell's Gary Barnett Defaults on $28 million Loan

Gary Barnett is the CEO of Extell Development Corporation, which, along with the Carlyle Group, owns and is developing what they call "Riverside Center," the southern portion of the Riverside South project in Manhattan.

Here is the opening of the story that has just appeared in Real Estate Weekly:

Barclays has begun foreclosure proceedings on a development parcel owned by Extell Development Company on the far West Side.  

The London based bank filed suit against Extell over the weekend, claiming that the real estate firm has defaulted on a $28.8 million mortgage Barclays loaned the company in 2005.   

The lawsuit names Extell’s chief executive, Gary Barnett, as a personal guarantor on the debt, meaning he is responsible for paying portions of the mortgage if proceeds from a foreclosure sale aren’t sufficient to recoup the loan amount.

Not long after taking over the Riverside South project, Gary Barnett's Extell "defaulted" on the long-standing commitments to community that came along with the project, and which they agreed to assume when they bought the land.

No one following the actions of Extell will be surprised about this reported default.

Memo to Community Forum Attendees

FROM:             Anne Weisberg,  Chair, 10 WEA Riverside Center Committee

 RE:                   Update on Extell Proposal

 DATE:              October 26, 2009

 The pressure on Extell to modify its proposal is building – and we need to keep it up.

 Community Board 7 (CB7) will unveil its in-depth analysis of the Riverside Center project and its alternatives on Tuesday October 27^th at 6:30PM at the CB7 office, 250 West 87^th St.  It is very important that as many people attend as possible – as the more community support CB7 has, the better.

 Here is what else you can do to keep the pressure up:

•  Frequent www.riversidecentric.com , which has been established as a community forum on the project and has been getting a lot of traffic. The site has the latest developments, important meeting dates, and links to relevant websites. Our elected officials are watching the site as an indication of the interest in the community.
• Write Council Member Gale Brewer (gale.brewer@council.nyc.ny.us) and ask her to ensure that all the alternatives be analyzed, including those by the Coalition for a Livable West Side, the Riverside South Planning Corporation, and Community Board 7.  Below is an excerpt from the memo 10 West End Avenue presented to Council Member Brewer at a meeting on October 23:

 “We hope we can count on your leadership to ensure that these alternatives are included in the environmental review process, as they reinforce – rather than renege – on the original deal made between the City and the developer for Riverside South.”

This was written by Anne Weisberg.

Good News

There will be an open meeting of CB 7's Riverside Center Working Group at 6:30pm on Tuesday, October 27 at the CB 7 office, 250 W 87th St., Manhattan. See the following post.

Good news! Community Board 7’s consultants have come up with some alternatives to Extell’s plans for expansion that are a step in the right direction. They will be discussed at tomorrow’s meeting . At first blush, Scenario C, with its open lawn/landscape opposite the School is by far the preferable one. But all of the Scenarios build on Extell’s proposal as the original Scenario (A1). Why not build on the Restrictive Declaration as the original Scenario?

                Setting that concern aside for the moment, CB7’s consultant, Michael Kwartler Associates, has provided an analysis full of excellent information that needs to be carefully studied.  He points out, for example, that in Extell’s original plan, Scenario A1:

·         The  designated Open Space actually includes the private street, Freedom Place, and includes open areas under buildings

·         The sitting lawns, landscaped areas and the water feature appear to make up only 1.71 acres of the 3.8 acres of Open Space cited in the Draft Scope of Work

·         The Open Spaces on the West End Ave. and 60^th street sides are mostly terraces elevated from the sidewalk

This is just a beginning of what is contained in the report, which was only released a few days ago. So let’s not  swoon with relief and happily endorse Scenario C until we have time to carefully consider all the information.

This was written by Marta Hallowell.

CB 7 Working Group Meeting on the proposed Riverside Center

There will be an open meeting of CB 7's Riverside Center Working Group at 6:30pm on Tuesday, October 27 at the CB 7 office, 250 W 87th St., Manhattan. The agenda is to review the consultant's report on the proposed Riverside Center.

The consultant's report is already available on the CB 7 website.

The City Planning Commission can require the developer to analyze alternatives. They will take the input of CB 7 seriously. Many people are hoping that Extell will be required to analyze several alternatives, including the new one to be discussed Tuesday, in addition to alternatives by the Riverside South Planning Corporation and Coalition for a Livable West SIde.

What will become of the last large, open plot of land right by the Hudson and adjacent to the ConEd IRT Powerhouse (soon to be landmarked, we hope)?

Please attend to make your interest and views known!

As a preview of what you will see, here are a couple of the drawings from the full document:

First, the four alternatives (click to see a full-size view):

And second, Scenario C (click to see a full-size view):

A Green Jewel

Mr. Rubenstein,

I, for one, am impressed by the vision and generosity that you demonstrated by donating the Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence and Emancipation Proclamation to the Nation Archives. I look forward to seeing them there myself, and to bringing my children and, someday, grandchildren to see them.

I truly hope, Mr. Rubenstein, that you can be moved to see that donating a block-wide park connected to the Hudson River, more or less as per the 1992 Restrictive Declaration, would be a gift of equal vision, to be equally savored by many generations to come. Manhattan is a crowded, noisy city. We have Central Park, and thanks to Mayor Bloomberg, there is a plethora of pocket parks, studded with planters here and there. But even in these, we are usually only steps away from the pollution and frenetic energy of the city. There is a paucity of true parks where people can retreat into the tranquility of mature trees and beautiful landscaping. You gave jewels of political vision to the Archives. Please give a green jewel that will be treasured by generations to the people of New York. The block north of the IRT Powerhouse represents one of the very last chances to preserve a significant public park in Manhattan.

This was written by Marta Hallowell.

Philanthropy by Carlyle's David Rubenstein: Cake for me, Crumbs for you

David M. Rubenstein, co-founder of the Carlyle Group, is one of the world's richest men, coming in at #123 on the Forbes list of the richest Americans in 2009. His net worth is reported at about $2.5 billion.

A recent WSJ blog post reports that during a session of the World Business Forum earlier this month, "...he rattled off one troubling fact about the U.S. economy after another..."

As we have heard before, "Mr. Rubenstein emphasized the importance of giving back to communities, saying he had recently purchased documents — including the Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence, and Emancipation Proclamation signed by Abraham Lincoln — and given them to the National Archives."

Well, I must say, this is very impressive, Mr. Rubenstein. When you add this gift to the others you've made recently, the total must be rapidly approaching 0.5% of your net worth. Amazing generosity!

Next time you rattle off "troubling facts" about the U.S. economy, I suggest you add this one to your list:

The U.S. economy (not to mention its moral fiber) is troubled when one of its richest and most powerful men who has founded and continues to control its largest and most powerful investment group promotes philanthropy and uses his own gifts as an example; when those gifts are meaningful to the recipients, but trivial to him; when his own company continues unchecked its deal-breaking, rapacious practices to wring profits at the expense of communities.

Mr. Rubenstein, while you make public speeches about the importance of "giving back to communities," using yourself as an example, I sincerely hope that people do what you say, and not what you do. Because what you actually do is run the Carlyle Group, and at least with Extell at Riverside South, you are taking from the community and running roughshod over it. Why are you doing this? You already have enough money so that, at the current rate, you can make head-line-worthy gifts forever? Mr. Rubenstein, please wake up!

UPDATE:

I realize that sarcasm might obscure my meaning for some readers, so let me make the message plainer.

Q: What's your problem with philanthropy and serving communities?

A: I applaud both. I applaud Mr Rubenstein for his gifts to Lincoln Center, Duke and the rest.

Q: So why do you criticize? What do you object to?

A: His public, personal actions and advice seem inconsistent with the actions of his firm, the Carlyle Group. This strikes me as hypocritical: relatively small, public-minded actions in the spotlight vs. huge, deal-breaking and anti-community actions by his firm and its partner that he doesn't talk about.

Q: What would you have him do?

A: Continue his philanthropy, and conduct his business activities by the same standard. Why can't the Carlyle Group do well by doing good at the same time? There is a great deal of money to made on the Riverside South project, even while respecting the community and adhering to the community guidelines (the 1992 Restrictive Declaration and related agreements). The Riverside South Planning Corporation and its members and other community groups should be a partner, not a spurned adversary.

Hundreds of Millions of $ on the Line for Extell and the Carlyle Group

There are some abstruse issues here that have taken me awhile to wrap my head around. At the beginning, I just focused on how the Extell Development Corporation (and their financial backers or co-owners, the Carlyle Group) started with a 2 block plot of land adjacent to ConEd's IRT Powerhouse on which they had the clear right to build 2.37 million square feet of buildings (which is really big), and for the last year or two they've been pouring huge amounts of time and money into designing a project that violates the limits -- they want to build 3.14 million square feet, which is really, really big. Isn't that what developers do? They put up big buildings. What's the big deal? Why are they so very anxious to blow past building limits that have been agreed to since 1992?

Here's the best way to make this tangible. It's probably what those clever, money-making folks at Extell are crunching on, and how their partners at the Carlyle Group are planning to make some great returns, so that the Carlyle Group founder, Mr. David Rubenstein, can add even more to his billions and get great stories written about him for giving tiny crumbs of it away.

I hope to lay out all the math for this soon, but here's the basic idea:

For each additional 100,000 square feet of residential floor space Extell can ram through the approval process, Extell and Carlyle Group stand to make over $100,000,000 of profit -- that's $100 million of profit, not revenue, for each additional 100,000 square feet they can get approved.

And they're demanding (not asking -- demanding!) over 700,000 additional square feet. That is roughly 3/4 of a billion dollars of profit hanging on the outcome. Do you think they're focused on this? Do you think this has their attention? You betcha!

More to come...