15 Leonard Street

The Landmarks Preservation Commission shot down developer Steven Schnall’s plans to build a nine-story condominium building at 15 Leonard Street in Tribeca, according to Curbed. Schnall had planned to replace two single-story parking garages with a building composed of a two-story glass base topped with five stories of steel residences and a two-story roof addition.

The developer intended to move his family into the two-story base and the cellar, to form a three-floor, 6,000-square-foot maisonette. Below that would be a commercial parking garage. The four lower levels of the five-story middle section would include full-floor, 2,600-square-foot apartments, while the top floor of the middle section and the rooftop addition would form a triplex penthouse. [more]

From left: 1108 and 1110 Park Avenue

Typically a buyer of pre-assembled lots, Toll Brothers is wading in unchartered territory with its development plans at Park Avenue between 89th and 90th streets. The Wall Street Journal reported the firm’s latest trouble at the location comes from residents on the block who have doubled down their efforts to block the project by pushing to designate the very buildings on the site as landmarks.

Toll acquired two townhouses at 1108 and 1110 Park Avenue in March for $29.5 million, and have been working to demolish the circa-1856 structures to erect a new development. [more]

Robert Tierney, chairman of the LPC

[Updated at 4:30 p.m. with comments from the Historic Districts Council] At a public hearing this morning, the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission finally had its say on a package of 11 bills that could substantially impact the workings of the agency, a spokesperson for the LPC told The Real Deal today. The agency took particular issue with 11 bills that seek to impose a timeline on the LPC’s deliberation of potential landmarks and historic districts, including one that introduces a time limit of 180 days for LPC to respond to requests for evaluation and another that institutes a fixed deadline of 33 months for landmark and historic district designations. [more]

From left: City Council member Leroy Comrie, who chairs the City Council's land use committee, Landmarks Preservation Commission Chairman Robert Tierney and Simeon Bankoff of the Historic Districts Council

The New York City Council is set to review a package of 10 bills relating to the workings of the Landmarks Preservation Commission tomorrow morning, according to the council’s website, some of which have garnered significant support from the Real Estate Board of New York but elicited concern from preservation groups. [more]

A rendering of the plans for the South Street Seaport

The South Street Seaport in its current form is not long for this world, it seems, the New York Times reported. In a hearing yesterday with the Landmarks Preservation Commission, owner the Howard Hughes Corporation outlined its ambitious plans to “turn Pier 17 into a glass-clad shed dominated by two 60,000-square-foot sales floors on the upper level,” the Times said, which would mean that no large-scale retailers could be accommodated. And so far, the LPC seems receptive. [more]

Cathedral of Saint John the Divine and AvalonBay Morningside Park

Talks to landmark the perpetually unfinished Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights have renewed for a fourth time in more than 40 years as Equity Residential lays plans for a 15-story apartment building on the church’s campus, the Wall Street Journal reported. Once again, preservationists and activists want the building and its surrounding campus — called “the close” — landmarked before Equity begins work on its development. [more]

Gene Kaufman and a rendering of the revamped Hotel Chelsea

Architect Gene Kaufman presented his renovation plan for the Hotel Chelsea to the Landmarks Preservation Commission yesterday, Curbed reported, but most of the feedback came from residents and politicians who attended the hearing. The most controversial aspect of the plan was a 16-foot high glass and aluminum 3,800-square-foot rooftop addition to the landmarked building at 222 West 23rd Street. [more]

The gas station at West Houston and Lafayette streets

The owner of a Soho gas station is presenting modified plans for an office tower at his property to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the New York Post reported. Marcello Porcetti, who owns the BP at West Houston and Lafayette Streets, has been vying to develop an office tower with ground floor retail at the 11,000-square-foot site for years, but must find favor in the LPC eyes thanks to a 2010 landmarks expansion that included his gas station. [more]

Upper West Side of Manhattan

The controversial zoning change proposed for the Upper West Side has been widely denounced by the Columbus Avenue Business Improvement District, according to a new release received today. The zoning revision would limit the size of retail stores on Columbus Avenue, from 72nd to 87th streets.

The rezoning was proposed by the New York City Department of Planning in January in an attempt to stem what Upper West Side residents perceived as the growth of larger chain stores and banks in the neighborhood. It would also place limits on retail spaces on Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway, from West 72nd to West 110th streets. But Columbus Avenue has little need for protections, the BID said, as it lacks large development sites and is already protected by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. [more]

From left: David Schwimmer, the home that formerly stood at 331 East Sixth Street and photos of construction at the site (building credits: PropertyShark)

Former “Friends” star David Schwimmer skirted the Landmarks Preservation Commission and demolished an East Village townhouse he purchased just before it could be designated a landmark, the New York Post reported.

Schwimmer bought the five-story, circa-1852 townhouse at 331 East Sixth Street for $4.1 million in 2010. Twice in early 2011 the LPC sent him letters warning that the building could be landmarked by the end of 2012. [more]