City closes on Soho garage site for $116M

Rendering of proposed sanitation garage, James Gandolfini, Jennifer Connelly and John Slattery

The city recently bought a UPS parking lot on West Street for $116 million, with plans to turn it into a parking garage for garbage trucks, angering the celebrities who live nearby, the Observer reported. The two-acre lot, at the corner of Spring Street, is across from the Urban Glass House and several other West Soho and Hudson Square condominiums including 505 Greenwich Street. Local residents include “Sopranos” star James Gandolfini, and couples Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson, Jennifer Connelly and Paul Betany, in addition to John Slattery of “Mad Men.” Unhappy residents and neighbors launched a campaign against the garage in the past, which included a counter-plan for a publicly accessible garage that doubles as a park, to no avail, as the city is insistent that each neighborhood bear a portion of the city’s sanitation burden. A lawsuit attempting to block the project was dismissed earlier this year.
But in an effort not to detract from the neighborhood, it’s costing the city millions of extra dollars to make an attractive facade designed by Dattner Architects and WXY, architects told the Observer. [NYO]