From left: 437 Washington Street (source: PropertyShark) and a rendering of the Romanoff building to come

A demolition permit was filed this week for 437 West 13th Street, the Greenwich Village Society of Historical Preservation reported on its blog, paving the way for construction of the controversial 10-story, 175-foot office tower planned by Romanoff Equities adjacent to the High Line.

Romanoff has been battling with City Planning to maximize the size of the glassy tower, initially filing plans for a 250-foot with the expectation of a zoning variance that would clear the way for the building to exceed zoning regulations by 66 percent. Romanoff claimed that because the High Line ran through the property, it would need to build larger to recoup its investment. [more]

A rendering of the development at 437 West 13th Street and Amanda Burden, chair of the City Planning Commission

Romanoff Equities received approval today for a shorter, but still contentious, new 10-story office and retail building at 437 West 13th Street in the Meatpacking District, adjacent to the High Line. The original proposal called for a 215-foot, 12-story glass tower, exceeding the manufacturing zone’s maximum floor area ratio of 5. The developers argued that the additional size — their proposal’s F.A.R. was 7.73 — would allow them to recoup the costs of an expensive foundation made necessary by soil conditions on the site and a portion of the land made unusable by the location of the High Line. Over the course of three public hearings on the matter, during which community groups argued that the tower would outsize its neighbors and replace a historic Meatpacking building, the proposal was scaled down to 201 feet, and then to 175 feet, or a 6.18 F.A.R., at which point it was unanimously approved by the Board of Standards and Appeals.
Even so, the approved proposal is 24 percent larger than traditional zoning laws would allow for that space. [more]