It’s Rudins vs. Persnickety History in the Village
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The debate over a proposed new hospital complex for St. Vincent Catholic Medical Centers and the accompanying development of apartments and townhouses is heating up as the plan goes before the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission for a hearing on Tuesday.
At the center is real estate developer William Rudin, also chairman of the Association for a Better New York, who wants to build the largest residential housing development that the notoriously development-adverse Greenwich Village community has seen in decades. Mr. Rudin and his Rudin Management Co. are key to the project, as St. Vincent’s would sell him its existing site and use the proceeds to help build an $800 million hospital across the street.
More than anything else, Mr. Rudin faces history in the Village—both in the neighborhood’s historic-district restrictions and in its tendency to mount successful opposition campaigns and stop developments it dislikes. Even the ever powerful Robert Moses was handed a major defeat in the Village, which crushed his plans to build a highway through the area.
“Building in New York City is difficult—that’s a given,” Mr. Rudin said. “In the Village, we think that there’s obviously a lot of people who are passionate about their community and feel very strongly about the historic nature.”
Rudin Management Co. would pay St. Vincent’s $310 million for the current site, which would be demolished to make way for the main building of the over 600,000-square-foot development, which tops off at 265 feet. That would make it one of the higher structures in the neighborhood. The hospital would build a new facility across the street that reaches 321 feet, a height that preservationists have opposed.
Preservationists, who have submitted an alternative plan that the hospital has dismissed as unfeasible, say both the Pei Cobb Freed & Partners-designed hospital and the FXFowle-designed residential development are far too out of scale for the historic neighborhood.
“Really, what Rudin is proposing to do wouldn’t even get a second glance were it not for the fact that he’s attached himself to this hospital,” said Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.
Mr. Berman, whose powerful society has put opposing the hospital project as presented at the top of its agenda, said that the neighborhood has seen some new development in recent years. He also said the area has a strong track record of defeating large projects.
“You’d have a highway going through Washington Square Park, you’d have a highway going through the south Village and Soho; you’d have the entire West Village demolished for slum clearance,” Mr. Berman said of a Village without preservation movements.
Mr. Rudin, who noted that over 3,000 people have joined a group supporting a new St. Vincent’s, defended his plan as architecturally respectful of the neighborhood, and tried to dampen allegations that he was going to make a killing on the deal.
“Look what’s happened in the economy,” Mr. Rudin said. “Everybody thinks we’re going to make all this money. The reality is, who knows what’s going to happen? We’re taking a huge risk.”
Whether for New Yorkers or the multitudes who visit the city and the neighborhood each year, Greenwich Village embodies not only a unique charm and European-style sense of humanity, but also an important historical heritage. These aspects of the neighborhood also have an economic value, albeit one that may be difficult to quantify.
The Rudin company's current proposal, if carried out, is of such a disproportionately towering scale that it would chip away irrevocably at the neighborhood's physical presence as well as its social and cultural legacy. In doing so, the project also would diminish the economic value of the neighborhood to the city.
The creation of historic districts within the city, whether in the block where St. Vincent's is located, recognizes these unique features and attempts to preserve them for everyone's benefit. In overriding this designation, the Rudin organization seeks to put its judgment and financial interests above those of the planners and others who labored for many years to create and preserve the Greenwich Village historic district.
In view of the historically valuable real estate in the Village and in New York, the supposed risk that Mr. Rudin invokes with respect to his development is, as his financial analysts surely advised him early on, one with a good shot at a signficant reward--for the Rudin organization. In other words, it is disingenuous to claim that development of the site is "a huge risk." Regarding the 3,000 supporters of the project, how many are paid St. Vincent's staff or union members? The alternative plan submitted by preservationists attempts to preserve the value and character of Greenwich Village, while recognizing the need to update St. Vincent's facilities. If the neighborhood is willing to compromise in allowing some development to move forward, it is important to understand why the Rudin organization refuses to make the slightest compromise. In these matters, an arrogant "all or nothing" approach only arouses antagonism.