Selldorf Designs New Building for 42 Crosby Parking Lot

On Monday a creative crew from Selldorf Architects presented a first peek of their plan to build atop an old SoHo parking lot at 42 Crosby Street. The Landmarks contingent at Community Board 2 watched the powerpoint presentation and poured over sheaths of renderings for the new residential and retail proposal, all to be bankrolled by developer Atlas Capital Group. The Atlas money men, Jeffrey A. Goldberger and Andrew B. Cohen, with holdings in NYC, London and down in DC, secured the site late last year for a sweet $16 million. If their plan is approved, a five-story base in aluminum and glass, rising to match the top of neighboring buildings, will fill the site along the northwest corner of Crosby and Broome. Up high, set back 20 feet from the streetwall, a glassy four-story tower will rise, wrapped in a meshy brise-soleil. But if the noise in the room was any indication, the Selldorf team just might have to re-think this modern take on cast iron classicism.
Local residents chimed in during the public part of the presentation, some in favor and some definitely not. The obvious similarities to Jean Nouvel's 40 Mercer, where wide expanses of glass tower above Broadway one block over, were deemed not so appropriate along the north side of Broome Street, where real cast iron rules the roost. No doubt the development team would like to replicate the Nouvel price tag here on Crosby, but you can't always get what you want. Selldorf's team is well aware of that, after their recent proposal for a new building at 10 Bond Street in NoHo was termed "too timid" by the LPC. But creativity can't be stopped by a few critical words. When Selldorf's revised plan on Bond was revealed, it won a resounding approval. This site on Crosby, cleared of some quaint old buildings back in 1942 and home to stacks of cars ever since, might follow the same bumpy course. Selldorf and Atlas are set to go before the Landmarks Presentation Commission on October 23.
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