Amity Street Developers Go Back to the Drawing Board

The CEO and Chairman of 110 Amity Street developer Time Equities says that the firm is going back to the drawing board to "re-conceive the project." The Cobble Hill development, which would put an addition atop a 1903 building and would have added townhouses on vacant land in a "mews" setting, got a cold reception from some residents and from the Landmarks Preservation Commission. (Our friends at Brownstoner have dubbed the proposal the "Amity Street Horror.") In any case, Francis Greenburger, Time Equities CEO and Chairman left a comment on a GL post that we believe is worthy of its own post:

Time Equities and its partner Lucky Boy do not want to present a project that does not have community support. We thought the mews approach did because it was supported verbally and in writing by a number of community residents and local architects based on meetings we held in November and December. The mews design was also recommended for approval by the Landmarks staff who reviewed the plan.

It may be that some community members who took issue with the mews did not attend these meetings. The benefit of the Landmark process is that it gives all stakeholders a chance to be heard. Several concerns that arose at the meetings led to changes.

We value feedback from the community and the commission and will continue to address concerns, such as those that arose in the early meetings which led to design revisions of the Henry Street façade of the new townhouse.

At this point, we will re-conceive the project in a traditional street wall approach and try to present a plan that is responsive to the input received at the most recent Landmark hearing. As we did last time, we will reach out to the community and Landmark staff prior to presenting the final concept to the commission.

The same email was sent to Lost City and, we suspect, will appear on other blogs later in the day as well. It will be interesting to see the developer's new plans.