While overshadowed by the Santiago Calatrava-designed 80 South Street, there’s another architecturally ambitious Lower Manhattan building, Beekman Tower.
The mammoth tower, designed by starchitect Frank Gehry, will rise on the corner of Spruce and Beekman streets near City Hall to become the tallest residential building in Lower Manhattan (see Taller than ever, residential buildings kiss the sky). It will likely see occupancy in 2010.
Ground was broken in October and excavation is proceeding for the project developed by Forest City Ratner, which will rise 75 stories. That will make the 850-foot glass- and titanium-skinned Beekman Tower the largest structure in the City Hall area. While it won’t reach as high as the Freedom Tower, it will be taller than the 740-foot headquarters building planned for Goldman Sachs, and also taller than the neighboring 790-foot Woolworth Building.
The tower is expected to have as many as 800 residential units in a luxury, full-service building. A public elementary school (kindergarten through 8th grade) will occupy five floors. NYU Beekman Downtown Hospital will have 25,000 square feet for outpatient services as well as 200 underground parking spaces for staff and patients. There will also be 2,500 square feet of ground-floor retail.
Brokers said the building brings excitement to the area.
“A Frank Gehry-designed building will be a major plus,” said Richard Grossman, director of Downtown sales at Halstead Property. “We don’t have a lot of trophy designs Downtown.”
As for community residents, since the Beekman is an as-of-right project, they did not have a say in the scale of it. Julie Menin, chairperson of Community Board 1, said that area residents are concerned about traffic, street and sidewalk access, as well as noise during construction and a loss of parking spaces. Residents have won some concessions from Ratner, however, including mitigating the noise from pile drivings by shrouding some equipment, she said.
The project will bring many units to market near City Hall, which is not known as a major residential destination. Just how a project of this size, arriving in a market with a host of other new developments, will be absorbed by the year 2010 is hard to say.
“There’s a lot of property on the market and much more coming on,” said Brahna Yassky, an associate broker at Brown Harris Stevens. “It’s not like Tribeca, where there is always a scarcity.”
Community Board 1 estimates that there will be nearly 2,100 other new units coming to market in the Financial District within the next few years, on top of the 6,100 units completed between 2000 and 2005.
While this supply could affect how well the Beekman sells, the building has a number of assets going for it. For one, it’s rare new construction in a market dominated by rehabbed historic buildings.
“New construction has certain advantages over historic conversions,” said Yuval Greenblatt, executive vice president with Prudential Douglas Elliman. “You can ensure light, views, and amenities such a washer and dryers,” he said.
Newly constructed units can also be preferable to buyers who sometimes face odd layouts in a rehabbed historic building.
In addition to being close to Wall Street jobs, another thing the Ratner building has going for it is the school. While the 630-seat elementary school was a concession to community residents, many of whom objected to a building this size, it should appeal to the family market.
“The public school is a big inducement for families,” said Yassky. “I would love to live in a building where my child could go to school.”
Still, at the moment, the Financial District is missing many neighborhood amenities — for example, there is no large-scale grocery store in the area, although Whole Foods is coming to Tribeca, about a mile away.
The new Fulton Street transit center, which will improve subway connections and create a link to the PATH, is scheduled for completion in 2009. Sources speculate that Fulton Street could be turned into a pedestrian-only street with cobblestones and outdoor cafeacute;s, although no decision has been made yet.
“It will be good timing in 2010,” said Yassky. “This area will be a lot more residential and the Freedom Tower will be done by then.”