Developer Plans Homeless Shelter In the East Village

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The New York Sun

A developer whose plans to build a 19-story dorm in the East Village were disrupted by a landmarks designation this week now says he will use the former school to house a homeless shelter and drug-abuse treatment center.

Developer Gregg Singer said he will also move ahead with plans to strip the East 9th Street building of its architecturally significant elements. Mr. Singer said scaffolding would rise Friday, and selected demolition would begin next week.

“They are going to get a stripped-down building with a homeless shelter. If that is what they want, then fine,” Mr. Singer said yesterday during a telephone interview.

The former home of P.S. 64 and a popular community and cultural center has been the focus of aggressive community opposition to development since Mr. Singer purchased the building from the city in 1998 for $3.1 million.

The developer is naming the shelter after a nearby condominium tower where some opponents of his plan reside. Mr. Singer says his decision to put a shelter in the former home of P.S. 64 is not meant to spite his community opponents. In the past, he has said that much of the intense community opposition to his plans is more about NIMBY-ism than about preserving the building.

Mr. Singer said the shelter would exist for three to five years as he takes the city to court to allow him to build a dormitory. He is suing the city for $100 million, claiming Mayor Bloomberg is blocking the site’s development because he cut a political deal with a former City Council member, Margarita Lopez, to save the building in exchange for her endorsement in the last election. The city Law Department said the allegation is without merit.

State permits would be required to use the site as a treatment center, but Mr. Singer said he could use part of the building for distributing meals to the homeless and as a temporary shelter.

A member of the East Village Community Coalition, Roland Legiardi-Laura, who has opposed Mr. Singer, said he would volunteer to work in Mr. Singer’s shelter.

“It sounds perfectly noble,” Mr. Legiardi-Laura said. “If that is what it takes for him to fix the place up, then fine.”

City landmarks officials will meet with Mr. Singer’s architect today to try to work out a solution with the developer, a spokeswoman said. On Tuesday, the landmarks commission voted unanimously to designate the former school as a landmark, based on its historic early 20th-century architecture and its history as a community center.

Mr. Singer said the designation cost him $36 million, his estimate for the value of more than 100,000 square feet of air rights over the building. The developer responded to the designation by saying he would follow through with earlier threats to denude the building’s facade. Mr. Singer said it would bolster his legal case to try to reverse the landmarks commission’s ruling.

Mr. Legiardi-Laura said word would travel fast around the neighborhood when and if the demolition work started. He said the community would likely respond with protests.

“People will be very upset. Because there is no logic, it seems like an act of petulance,” he said.


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