GREENWICH VILLAGE — An 18-story residential building proposed for Sixth Avenue is too tall for the neighborhood, residents said at a public meeting Wednesday.
Members of Community Board 2's land use committee want the city to force Madison Equities and Property Markets Group to reduce the height of the condo tower they're planning for the site of a shuttered car wash at Sixth Avenue and Broome Street.
Worried that the new building at 120 Sixth Ave. would block light and stick out among its low-rise neighbors, board members and local residents want the city Board of Standards and Appeals to limit the building's height. The developers need approval from the BSA to proceed because the land is zoned for industrial, not residential, use.
"We want it down as far as it can go," said board member Terri Cude.
But Madison Equities CEO Robert Gladstone said the building devised over the past three years needs to be as tall as it is in current plans in order to be financially viable.
"This is the lowest building we can build," he said. "Height gives value."
At Wednesday's meeting, architect Cary Tamarkin of Tamarkin Co. presented plans for a 223-foot building covered in blond bricks, calling the wedge-shaped structure a "modern Flatiron."
It looked more like an "eyesore," to Thompson Street resident Jicky Schnee, though. The actress and artist rejected the developer's and architect's references to the heights of the nearby James Hotel and Trump SoHo Hotel as a way of justifying the new building's 18 stories.
"You're using buildings like The James as a comparable, but those are buildings that have been fought over for the last seven to 10 years," she said.
CB2 member Frederica Siegel asked the developers to turn private gardens behind four 4,500-square-foot townhouses that are also part of the project into public green space.
"That's an amenity they should cultivate, not turn their backs on Sixth Avenue," she said.
CB2 will issue an advisory vote on the project at its full board meeting 6 p.m. June 20.
