By Serena Solomon
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MIDTOWN — West Side residents are still up in arms about a billion dollar development despite modified plans announced by the developer at a community board meeting on Wednesday night.
Extell Corp. revealed the modifications for the Upper West Side development, Riverside Center, which was formerly known as Trump City. It will see five apartment towers and retail space built on a super-bloc bounded by 59th and 61st Street and West End Avenue and Riverside Boulevard.
Community leaders, however, are still demanding more changes to ensure it is not an exclusive community for the rich.
"The new plan has a couple of improvements, but there's a long way to go," said Mel Wymore, the chair of Community Board 7, in an e-mail. "In general, the site plan still comes across as a private enclave, not an attractive destination for West Side residents or New Yorkers in general."
Nearby residents need to feel welcomed in the 3 acres of privately owned but publicly accessible land, board members said, and to have better access to the 12 percent of the site slated for 2,500 affordable housing apartments.
George Arzt, a representative for Extell, announced there would be a school for up to 1,300 elementary and middle school children, a reduction in the height of three of the towers taking off 300 feet from their combined height, and that a proposal to have a big box retailer such as Costco as a tenant had been dropped.
"We modified the site plan to increase distances between buildings in order to increase light and reduce shadows on the public open space," said Arzt in an e-mail.
However, residents argue that the plan will still include a car showroom and service center, as well as a 250-room hotel.
Riverside Center is at the bottom of Riverside South, the controversial mega and multi-block development in the 1990s that was once the darling of Donald Trump. Most of Riverside South has already been constructed.
Plans for Riverside Center remain far from finalized with the proposal set to go through ULURP, a public approval process with the City Planning Commission, within the next few months. It gives residents another chance to voice their views at public hearings. The final say will be made by the City Council and the mayor.
