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Read the press release here.

Community Board Issues List of Demands for Riverside Center

A rendering of Extell Development Company's Riverside Center project, which would include a movie theater at West End Avenue and 60th Street.
A rendering of Extell Development Company's Riverside Center project, which would include a movie theater at West End Avenue and 60th Street.
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Extell Development Company

By Leslie Albrecht

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

UPPER WEST SIDE — Community Board 7 asked for a sweeping list of demands from Extell Development Company on Thursday night, suggesting that the developer build everything from a playground and school to a rental car facility at the proposed Riverside Center.

The City Council has final say on the project, but Community Board 7 got to weigh in Thursday with a 42-page description of its vision for Riverside Center, which would bring 2,500 new housing units to the Upper West Side.

Extell wants to build the five-building residential and retail complex on an 8.2-acre parcel between 59th and 61st streets and Riverside Boulevard and West End Avenue. The site is now a parking lot.

Community Board 7 members during a nearly four-hour discussion of Riverside Center on Thursday night.
Community Board 7 members during a nearly four-hour discussion of Riverside Center on Thursday night.
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DNAinfo/Leslie Albrecht

Community Board 7 said it wants the site to be developed, but it wants Extell to make some tweaks.

At the top of the list are requests that the developer make 30 percent of the housing "affordable" and build a school.

Community Board member Helen Rosenthal gathered more than 1,300 signatures asking Extell to build a six section K-8 school on the site.

"It's the most important thing out of this that we could get," Rosenthal said.

Other high priorities for the community board included minimizing the development's carbon footprint and eliminating one of the five buildings planned for the site.

During the nearly four-hour discussion on the project, community board members struggled with the question of how much they should ask for from Extell.

Some argued that Extell stands to make "billions" from the development, so the developer should foot the bill for expensive projects such as burying the West Side Highway and turning it into a park.

Others urged restraint.

"The strategic thing to do is to ask for everything we can ask for while remaining credible," said board member Charles Simon.

Whether the community board's demands will be met remains to be seen.

Extell president Gary Barnett said at a public meeting in June that piling on too many concessions will make the development too expensive to build.

Barnett wasn't at Thursday's meeting, but Extell spokesman George Arzt hinted that Community Board 7's list of wishes may not all come true.

"While we recognize the board's hard work, they clearly do not recognize the difficulty in developing projects in this uniquely challenging economic environment," Arzt said after the meeting.

Borough President Scott Stringer will issue a report on Riverside Center next, then it heads to the Planning Commission for review before a final vote by the City Council.