Following Up on Washington Square Park & Atlantic Avenue
Walentas ‘Independence’ plan back on track
Brooklyn Papers – Brooklyn,NY,USA
Community Board 6 rejected the Walentas’s original plan for an 81-foot building in 2005, and the Landmarks Preservation Commission refused to give the company permission to demolish a smaller building on Atlantic Avenue, next to the property, in 2006.
But it seems the kinks have been worked out.
“The project is definitely back up again,” said project manager Sam Charney, who didn’t want to go into detail before full design plans are revealed in two weeks.
What is known is that Walentas’s Two Trees Management wants to build a six-story building on the current parking lot behind the Sovereign Bank building, with stores at street level.
The LPC has approved the proposed building’s facade, as it is required to do for any new structure going up in a historic district.
The initial proposal called for tearing down a small annex to the 84-year-old Renaissance revival-style bank, converting the old bank building to housing and connecting the two buildings with a glass bridge. But the LPC insisted on the preserving the annex.
Appeals court approves Washington Square Park redesign
Newsday – Long Island,NY,USA
The unanimous decision by the State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division reversed a July 2006 injunction by Justice Emily Jane Goodman. She blocked the makeover, saying the city had failed to fully disclose its redesign plans and needed additional approvals from Community Board 2, the Landmarks Preservation Commission and the Art Commission.
The renovation plans, started in 2003, include restoration and relocation of the fountain that sits near the center of 9.75-acre park, so it will align with the Washington Square Arch at the foot of Fifth Avenue.