Downtown Whitney gets support

The proposed Renzo Piano-designed Whitney Museum at the High Line in the Meatpacking District has gotten some support from the neighborhood. The chairman of Community Board 2, Brad Hoylman, said the museum would be “an enormous cultural amenity for the neighborhood.” The building on Gansevoort Street at West Street will be a tiered, six-floor, 185,000-square-foot structure. It would include an educational facility, a restaurant, a research library, a cafe, a bookstore, a 175-seat theater, and a study center. Construction is expected to begin next year and a 2012 opening is projected. The new museum’s 50,000 square feet of gallery space would be much bigger than the uptown facility’s 32,000 square feet.