Madison Equities defends condo project as way to “heal” Soho

Robert Gladstone and a condo rendering (Credit: DNAinfo)
Robert Gladstone and a condo rendering (Credit: DNAinfo)

Developer Robert Gladstone of Madison Equities introduced his plan at last night’s Community Board 2 meeting to build an 18-story condominium building on a former car wash plot in Soho, Curbed reported. At the meeting, Gladstone’s land use counsel Margery Perlmutter argued that the proposal would not only save the site at 120 Sixth Avenue, but also by extension the neighborhood.

The immediate area has suffered from the impact of the “new” portion of Sixth Avenue, which linked the avenue from Carmine Street to the Holland Tunnel in 1925, Perlmutter said. In doing so, the avenue bisected Soho and left behind a rift between the Hudson Square neighborhood and the South Village section of Greenwich Village.

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Developing the site presents an opportunity to “heal” the neighborhood given its intersection at “the heart of the wound,” Perlmutter argued. The developer’s solution? A Cary Tamarkin-designed complex that includes 27 apartments, four townhouses with backyards, and accompanying parking and retail space.

Despite this approach, feedback from community members was ultimately negative. Many commenters were concerned that the building would appear too industrial. There was nearly universal consensus that the building will be too tall and out of context with its immediate neighbors. [Curbed]James Comtois