Yesterday, New York City's Planning Commission voted nearly unanimously to support a slightly reduced version of New York University's controversial expansion plans for two superblocks in Greenwich Village, reports Tom Stoelker.
Reduced in overall size from 2.47 million square feet to 2.1 million, the the 2031 Core Campus plan, designed by Grimshaw with Toshiko Mori and Michael Van Valkenburg, saw several aesthetic yet few programming changes, writes Stoelker.
"All four proposed buildings were approved with tweaks here and there. Both of the so-called 'Boomerang Buildings' will be reduced in height that will not exceed the slabs of the Washington Square Village buildings that frame them. The 'Zipper Building' will not be allowed to include a hotel component as part of its programming. The proposal for a temporary gym was also nixed."
"Of the changes to the nearly four acres of public space the most significant is that the university will not be permitted to build beneath the green strips on the northern superblock, thus saving the mature trees that are on the site."
Critics such as Michael Kimmelman and the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation are unlikely to be mollified by the tweaks to the plan. They'll have to hope that the City Council, the next stop for approvals, "will show some independence from the mayor."
FULL STORY: With Few Changes City Planning Passes NYU Expansion
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