Trump Set To Gain Permits To Build in SoHo

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The New York Sun

The city is set to grant building permits to developer Donald Trump to construct a 45-story condominium hotel in SoHo, which would be the tallest building in the low-rise neighborhood between Midtown South and the top of the Financial District, and some area residents are steaming. Preservationists are worried that the decision will set off a wave of condo hotel development in the city’s shrinking manufacturing areas.

Although the Trump project would be built on a former parking lot in an as-of-right site, opponents had hoped that the city’s Department of Buildings would deny the required permits because it was the first time a condo hotel has been proposed in one of New York’s manufacturing districts, which typically exclude residential use.

The director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, Andrew Berman, said it was disingenuous for the city to have determined that a condo hotel would not count as a residential use. In a condo hotel, buyers have the right to reside in their condo for a certain number of days a year. The rest of the time, the apartment is rented out like a hotel room, and the revenues are split between the management company and the owner.

“How can you say someplace where the owner of the room can stay there for 150 days a year is a transient hotel?” Mr. Berman asked. “Either they are totally disingenuous, or they have their heads in the sand on this one.”

A letter Tuesday from the City Council speaker, Christine Quinn, to her constituents said elected officials were working to ensure that the Trump building would serve as a transient hotel, not a disguised condominium. Ms. Quinn said she would ask the city’s Department of Planning to revisit the neighborhood’s zoning.

“Unfortunately,” Ms. Quinn wrote, “it is not possible to change the City’s zoning before the City issues building permits for 246 Spring Street.”

In the last decade or so, the city’s traditionally manufacturing areas — from the lower Hudson River waterfront in Manhattan to the Brooklyn and Queens waterfronts — have become desirable residential neighborhoods. Some, including Ms. Quinn, fear that the decision to grant the permits to the Trump project will spur developers to build condo hotels in other fragile manufacturing areas, which typically have fewer restrictions on the height and bulk of new buildings. Hotel condo developments are thought to be less risky because developers get most of their return up front.

Supporters of the Trump International Hotel & Tower SoHo, which would rise to about 450 feet and contain more than 400 condo hotel rooms, say the development would revive the area around Varick Street, where cars line up perpetually to drive through the Holland Tunnel.

The director of the SoHo Alliance, Sean Sweeney, said the development is completely at odds with the surrounding community.

“When Trump comes downtown, that’s when its time to leave,” Mr. Sweeney said. “We don’t want his tacky buildings down here. Donald Trump is an uptown guy.”

He said the city could have prevented the tower when it rezoned the nearby Hudson Square district in 2003. He said the city backed away because it wanted to preserve the area’s manufacturing, which persists in the form of some printing businesses along Varick Street.

Real estate experts said it is unclear how much equity Mr. Trump has in the project. They said Mr. Trump frequently will license his lucrative brand name to other developers. His building on Fifth Avenue in Midtown, Trump Tower, has become an ad hoc tourist attraction for fans of Mr. Trump’s television show, “The Apprentice.”

According to land use filings, the owners of the SoHo development site include Bayrock Development, the Sapir Organization, and Zar Realty Management. The principal of Sapir, Tamir Sapir, is a former cab driver who recently bought a mansion near Fifth Avenue for about $40 million.

Over the last year and a half, Zar Realty has paid more than $150,000 to Constantinople Consulting, the lobbying firm of a former speaker of the City Council, Peter Vallone Sr. On behalf of the developer, the firm lobbied the department of buildings, the planning commission, the City Council, the office of the Manhattan president, the office of the attorney general, and the office of the deputy mayor, according to filings with the state.

A spokeswoman for the department of buildings, Jennifer Givner, said that the project’s permits had not been approved. Demolition on the site could begin next week, according a report in the Villager.

A spokesman from Rubenstein Public Relations said the developer would not comment.


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