Irwin Ave. project gets questioned over parking plans

By N. Clark Judd

Developers of the controversial 11-story apartment building going up in Kingsbridge have long said their project won’t be profitable unless they are allowed special permission to build a parking garage inside it.

But at a Sept. 16 Community Board 8 land use committee meeting, a lawyer for the developers admitted that his clients don’t have evidence that there’s even a demand for parking that the garage will fill.

Developer North Manhattan Construction Corporation is seeking special permission to build a 150-space parking garage in the structure’s bottom three floors, with 110 spaces going to a public parking facility. But while North Manhattan has an economic study outlining how much money a garage could make, the company’s lawyer, Joshua Rinesmith, admitted his clients haven’t studied whether or not there’s a market for the parking spaces.

“I don’t have that study,” he said.

Local zoning laws only permit a maximum of 83 parking spaces in a building on the lot, where a retaining wall holding up Riverdale Avenue collapsed in 2002. Board 8 continues to oppose an exception to the rules, called a variance, which North Manhattan is seeking from the Board of Standards and Appeals.

“We are absolutely convinced that there is absolutely no need for this additional parking and that a covert purpose of the increase is to provide a vehicle — legitimate or otherwise — for the parking of taxis, limousines or other commercial mass users,” Board 8 Chairman Damian McShane wrote in a Sept. 18 letter opposing the variance.

Parking is a constant problem on Johnson Avenue, about a 10-minute walk away, but spots are usually available on side streets just around the corner from the bustling commercial corridor. It isn’t hard at all to find a parking place on Irwin Avenue itself, residents say.

Mr. Rinesmith, the lawyer for the developers, says North Manhattan should be allowed the variance to offset unexpected costs during construction, including buttressing the retaining wall — which wasn’t built atop bedrock — and digging deeper than expected to find rock suitable for the building’s own foundation.

Board 8 members are concerned about additional traffic on a quiet street if the garage fills up, and possibly worse, if it doesn’t.

“If the garage doesn’t fill up,” countered Charles Moerdler, the land use committee’s chairman, “you won’t get your reasonable return, and we’ll have one more abandoned building. That’s not something we need.”

Mr. Rinesmith also told the Board 8 committee that the plans had been redrawn to include 46 apartments in the building’s upper floors, as opposed to the original 26. The building had previously been planned as a condo complex, but is now likely to be rentals. Two floors set aside for a “community facility” were slated to accommodate a day care when Mr. Rinesmith spoke before Board 8 last year, but now he says they are more likely to host doctors’ offices. No tenants of either type are forthcoming thus far, he said on Sept. 16.

North Manhattan’s variance will be considered by the BSA in a public hearing on Tuesday, Sept. 22, which begins at 1:30 p.m. on the sixth floor of 40 Rector Street in Manhattan.

This is part of the September 24, 2009 online edition of The Riverdale Press.

Have an opinion on this matter? We'd like to hear from you. Click here.