BY YANNIC RACK | In yet another “strike” for developers, a new luxury high-rise in the Village will be replacing the East Coast’s longest continuously operating bowling alley, a neighborhood fixture since 1938.
Billy Macklowe, the owner of 110 University Place, filed plans to demolish the building and erect a 23-story apartment building two weeks ago. The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation had tried to make him consider an approach more in keeping with the surrounding neighborhood.
“We’re going to closely scrutinize any plans that have been submitted, to make sure that they are legal in all respects,” said Andrew Berman, G.V.S.H.P. executive director. “We’re also hopeful that this is just a preliminary filing on Mr. Macklowe’s part and that he will be willing to reconsider if he moves ahead.”
Berman has repeatedly reached out to Macklowe and has also urged Councilmember Rosie Mendez to contact the developer. He said Macklowe recently agreed to meet with Mendez, who has expressed concerns similar to Berman’s that the planned 308-foot-tall building doesn’t fit into the neighborhood.
In a letter in March, Berman wrote that the project would “completely shatter the scale and character of this neighborhood, standing out like a sore thumb.” He urged Macklowe to go with a so-called “Quality Housing Program” approach instead, which would complement the surrounding streetscape with contextual, turn-of-the-century masonry architecture.
The pins stopped falling at Bowlmor Union Square, the historic bowling alley, on July 8, when the place’s lease expired. The alley was housed in the existing four-story building, which it shared with a parking garage, for 76 years.
A statement on Bowlmor’s Web site claims that the bowling alley served “millions of guests — from former U.S. presidents, athletes, musicians and Hollywood stars to tourists and of course our bedrock clientele, New Yorkers.”
Berman said that even though this project could not be prevented, G.V.S.H.P. would keep fighting to ward off similar projects in the future.
The society certainly won’t have to look very far. Right now, there are three similar high-end developments on the same block, at 12 E. 13th St., 17 E. 12th St. and 61 Fifth Ave., according to real estate Web site New York Yimby.
None are quite as large as 110 University Place, though, which Berman said owes its size to a quirk of the zoning rules in the area.
“What it does is, it basically creates sort of a pyramid that rises up from the site, that defines an envelope that you can build within,” he said.
“So, the bigger the site is, the higher up the pyramid goes,” he explained. “This site is so large compared to any other development site that moved ahead in this neighborhood. That’s why there’s an ability to build a much taller building than we’ve ever seen built in this area. And that’s why we think the zoning is not a good kind of zoning and why we want to see a change.”
The application for the new building calls for 52 units, on average around 2,000 square feet in size.
