Prized Public Space at 77 Water Street is Demolished
Elected officials and community leaders are crying foul over the demolition of a public plaza at 77 Water Street, as that building undergoes conversion from offices to residential use. The 26-story building was opened in 1970 by developer William Kaufman and for decades has featured a ground-level arcade with shallow pools of water crossed by footbridges, surrounded by public art and benches. Designed by landscape architect Arthur Edwin Bye, the plaza (like much of his other work) drew inspiration from local ecology, with the pools configured as streams leading to the nearby East River.
This arcade and plaza at 77 Water are a so-called “privately owned public space” (POPS), amenities built for public use and the taxpayers’ benefit by the developers of private buildings. In exchange for creating such public amenities, developers are permitted to construct tens of thousands of square feet of extra private space within their buildings, which can yield millions of dollars in additional rent each year and a windfall of tens of millions of extra dollars if the building is ever sold. But a crucial component of this quid pro quo is that such spaces are required to remain available for public use in perpetuity.
The POPS at 77 Water has always been a highly regarded example of this form, described by urban planner Jerold S. Kayden as “inviting, exciting, warm, and friendly. It makes people forget they’re at an office building.” Last spring, however, the new owners of 77 Water Street, the Vanbarton Group, enclosed the plaza and arcade within construction fencing and began demolishing the much-prized space.
In May, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, State Senator Brian Kavanagh, State Assembly member Charles Fall, City Council member Christopher Marte, and Community Board 1 (CB1) chair Tammy Meltzer wrote to the Department of City Planning (DCP) to demand an explanation for the closure and demotion of this public plaza and arcade. “For more than fifty years, this POPS has been a required and beloved public space providing shade, ample seating, and public art for Downtown residents, workers and tourists to enjoy. Earlier this year, without public notice, all of those amenities were removed, including seven honey locust trees and several works of art. The public plaza was fenced in entirely and the POPS began to function as an apparent construction staging yard,” they wrote, noting that the property owners had not acquired appropriate certifications and permits for the work.
Four months later, the DCP replied, confirming that the owners of 77 Water did not have permission to demolish the POPS, but that the Department Buildings had the authority to allow “temporary closure and alteration of POPS for construction staging and safety purposes. This was the case for 77 Water Street… to facilitate an as-of-right, office-to-residential conversion. It is expected that the plaza will be restored to its original condition once construction is completed, since this permit did not modify the site plan.”
The DCP response continued, “the approved plans indicate that the POPS would be restored to its original condition following construction.” But the use of the word “expected” may prove crucial in this case, as the DCP acknowledges: “Although the [Department of Buildings] permit assumes that the original POPS conditions would be restored, the property owner has also contacted DCP in furtherance of a proposal to redesign the plaza and is currently preparing a draft land use application…. As with any permanent POPS design change, this new proposal will require a [City Planning] certification.”
Alice Blank, a Lower Manhattan architect who also serves as vice-chair of CB1 and chair of its Environmental Protection Committee, said, “CB1 has repeatedly expressed concerns about the maintenance and oversight of this plaza and arcade, and City Planning had previously assured us that greater supervision would be implemented.”
She added, “this demolition involves the removal of numerous live trees and the destruction of a valued public space. The community has repeatedly highlighted the significance of this area, making the seemingly unilateral decision to demolish it deeply troubling. We urgently need transparency about the demolition process, permitting, and the broader implications for public spaces in our neighborhoods.”
This development moves came against the backdrop of deepening public skepticism about the fairness of deals made between the City and real-estate developers regarding POPS. A 2017 audit by the office of then-City Comptroller Scott Stringer found that of 51 such spaces located in Lower Manhattan, only eight were meeting legally required standards for public access, hours, or the availability of amenities such as artwork, lighting, furniture, plantings, drinking fountains, and bike racks. This represents a significant loss of value to the public, because these POPS were created in exchange for generous zoning variances that allowed the building owners construct towers that were taller and denser than otherwise would have been permissible.
But those concerns did not stop the administration of then-Mayor Bill de Blasio from sponsoring a 2017 proposal to allow the owners of buildings along Water Street to enclose a dozen-plus arcades in exchange for a promise to maintain and upgrade the adjacent open-air plazas that are found in front of many of the same buildings. At the time, critics derided this as “giveaways” to developers and condemned the fact that public space was being traded away in exchange for a public service (properly maintaining the plazas) that building owners were already supposed to provide.