City Council green-lights Rudin’s development at former St. Vincent’s site

The New York City Council voted to approve the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure actions required to move forward on Rudin Management’s residential development at the site of the former St. Vincent’s hospital in the West Village, according to a statement today from Rudin.

The City Council indicated to The Real Deal in an email that the final approval vote was 49 to 1.

The City Council’s decision will be final “unless the Mayor elects to veto a Council action within five days of the vote,” a spokesperson for the City Council said. But also, the Council could override a potential veto within 10 days with a two-thirds majority.

The agreement includes a “number of modifications” secured by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the statement said. Previous reports, indicate that those concessions included a reduction of the number of units planned, from 450 to 350, and donations from Rudin of $1 million to arts programs for local schools P.S. 41, P.S. 3 and the Foundling School, and $1 million to MFY Legal Services, a non-profit that advocates for affordable housing.

The Rudins had purchased the property, with Eyal Ofer’s Global Holdings, from the closed hospital’s Chapter 11 estate in October 2011 for $260 million. Together the Rudins and Global form the entity responsible for the development, which is called West Village Residences.

“After more than five years, hundreds of public meetings and hearings and thousands of conversations, the final version of the project shows what can happen when governmental leaders, the community and a development team work together,” Bill Rudin said in the statement.

“This [project] will create jobs and provide significant new benefits in health care, housing and education,” Eyal Ofer, a partner at West Village Residences, added. — Guelda Voien