NYU announced this afternoon that it will withdraw its application for a 38-story fourth tower in the landmarked University Village.
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The proposed tower would have been in close proximity to the Silver Towers, which were designed by renowned architect I.M. Pei. According to NYU spokesman John Beckman, the university decided to withdraw its application after Pei sent a letter to the landmark preservation commission stating his opposition to the tower.
In the letter, one of Pei's partners, Henry Cobb, wrote that they are "setting forth [their] concerns and indicating [their] opposition to the application."
"After discussion with I. M. Pei, he and I are in agreement that the landmarked status of University Village now places us under an obligation to comment on the merits of the university's application insofar as the proposed fourth tower affects the integrity of the landmarked entity," the letter said.
Beckman said Pei was not always opposed to the fourth tower.
"Two years ago we went to speak to [Pei] because our planning had led us to look at creating a fourth tower as part of his existing configuration on the plot," Beckman said. "If we had heard opposition at that time or an inclination to enter the fray, we wouldn't have pursued the proposal that we did."
He added, "We would have preferred to hear of any opposition from Mr. Pei a good deal earlier."
Beckman said instead the university now will propose a building located on the site currently occupied by the Morton Williams supermarket, a property NYU purchased in 2001. NYU expects to file its application for the new building under the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure by next fall.
"The ULURP process requires a more developed creative architectural design so they can evaluate the proposal in a landmark context," Beckman said. "The ULURP application looks at things in a different way so it doesn't require the same degree of architectural design."
The original fourth tower was designed to serve as faculty apartments and a university-affiliated hotel. Although exact plans for the new building's use and design are not yet final, Beckman said the overall size will be close to 225,000 square feet, which is approximately the same size the fourth tower would have been. But, because the Morton Williams site is wider, the building will not be as tall.
"We will be looking to accommodate the range of uses on the superblocks, and a hotel remains one of the uses we are going to explore," Beckman said. "I can't tell you it will be in this building, though."
Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, said NYU underestimated the opposition to the fourth tower.
"I think the university did not realize the firestorm of controversy that this would create," Berman said. "They are now realizing the amount of opposition to this."
Berman said he also opposes the university's new proposal, saying he thinks "the university still does not get it."
Beckman said the withdrawal will not delay the completion of NYU 2031, the university's plan to expand the campus by 6 million square feet over the next two decades.
"Every Manhattan real estate story has to have a little Shakespearean twist," he said.
