A couple weeks ago, when developer Andreas Giacoumis and architect Darrin Krumpus proposed their plans for 246 Front Street and 267 Water Street to Community Board One, the board had some reservations about the Water Street townhouse. One member remarked that he would be "very surprised" if the proposal was accepted by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. We hope that board member is sitting down, because Krumpus presented to the LPC this morning, and the LPC's response was, in essence: Yeah, sure, fine. "This is basically very approvable," one commission member said. The buildings aren't approved quite yet, however, as the LPC had a couple minor changes they wanted made.
246 Front Street, a seven-story building with five residential units and the ground floor designated for commercial use, was the less controversial of the two. The LPC described it as "tame," "very subtle," "fairly straightforward," and "perfectly fine." However, they did take issue with the seventh floor (the top floor of the duplex penthouse), which is set back eight feet. "That last story ... is out of context and I would rather not see it from the street," one member said, and several others concurred. That's one of two issues that Krumpus and co. will have to address before they come back on August 14.
267 Water Street, a 12-foot-wide, four-story townhouse with a facade of steel and zinc, generated a little more discussion, but the response, overall, was positive. "I can approve an all metal structure here simply because of scale. As an anomaly it works very well," one member said. The Commission did agree, though, that the zinc panels needed to be better articulated, which will make more sense once you've seen a rendering of that building. Unfortunately, the developer won't release the renderings until the buildings are approved, so we had to make one of our own:
Something like that.
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