The Manhattan developer looking to demolish a pair of buildings in SoHo’s historic district conceded Tuesday that he’s unable to realize his original dream of erecting a commercial office tower in the neighborhood given the ailing state of the market.
“So I’m kind of embarrassed coming back here to say, ‘Hey, we have to change gears and can’t build this building,’” United American Land founder Albert Laboz said during a Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing May 7.
In 2017 Laboz bought three properties for $5.4 million at the corner of Canal and Broadway — at 301 Canal St., 419-421 Broadway and 423 Broadway — and went before the Landmarks Preservation Commission with an application to demolish two of them and put up an 8-story building in their place. Designed by Morris Adjmi Architects, the new structure would have included office space with retail on the ground floor.
But seven years and a whole pandemic later, Laboz acknowledges that times have changed, and the demand for office space is not what it used to be. Crain’s reported last month that the availability rate in Manhattan during the first quarter of this year hit a record 18.1%.
“We have this site, we bought it pre-Covid, and we designed this beautiful building. Unfortunately, we designed an office building. I don’t have to tell you where the office market is or where the financing for the office market is,” he said at the hearing.
The Manhattan-based, family-owned development firm is still eager to revitalize the corner, however, and went before the Landmarks Preservation Commission for a second time with a revised application. Laboz’s new scheme includes plans to tear down the buildings at 301 Canal St. and 419-421 Broadway, both of which have fallen into disrepair, and replace them with a new 1-story retail building. The proposed structure could either stand on its own in perpetuity or serve as an interim on the bustling block until the market bounces back, he said.
“Let’s go again and build something as a placeholder, like a 1-story, beautiful, gorgeous retail building that we can all be proud of and come back and fight another day when the market comes back,” Laboz told the commission.
In 2021 the city controversially rezoned the area to allow for building housing as of right as part of the SoHo/NoHo Neighborhood Plan, now allowing Laboz — if he wanted to — to put up a residential tower instead of offices. But that’s not economically feasible either, he said.
“Given that the site is pretty small and constrained and interest rates are where they are and the soil conditions — it doesn’t make sense at this moment for us,” he said at the hearing.
Next door at 423 Broadway, however, Laboz plans to renovate the existing building to accommodate continuous retail space on the ground floor, and two apartments above it — one on each floor, along with solar panels on the roof, said Morris Adjmi, his eponymous firm’s principal architect, during the landmarks hearing. The new residential entrance will be at the north end of the building, he said.
The Laboz family has both a personal and a financial interest in that corner, which sits right above the Canal Street subway station that serves the N, Q, R and W trains. They also own 277 Canal St., right across Broadway, where they’re working with the same architect to build 100 units of housing, a quarter of which are slated to be below market rate.
But before breaking ground, the Landmarks Preservation Commission must first sign off on the plans because the buildings sit within the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District. A vote on whether or not to approve Laboz’s application has not yet been set, said Courtney Clark Metakis, a spokeswoman for the Landmarks Preservation Commission.
Julianne Cuba , 2024-05-08 19:47:48
Author : New-York
Publish date : 2024-05-08 17:47:48
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