luxury condos approved for 11 jane street

After nearly eight months of back and forth with the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the design by David Chipperfield Architects for 11 Jane Street was approved last week. In January, commissioners compared the look of proposed design to a hotel, and deemed it out of place for the neighborhood. But by switching to casement windows and removing a balcony that stretched across the second floor, developer Edward Minskoff can now begin construction.

Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, was disappointed. “It still looks like a chain motel,” he said in a statement. “It’s still too large, and it still sticks out like a sore thumb. The changes made by the architect since January are the proverbial rearranging of the deck chairs on the Titanic. This design might look at home next to the off-ramp of I-95, but it does not make sense on this historic side-street.” Before the hearing Berman submitted a letter to the commission citing concerns such as the “blandness” of the ground floor and the lack of greenery.

According to real estate news site YIMBY, however, chair Meenakshi Srinivasan thought the changes responded satisfactorily to the commission’s analysis. The six-story condo building will replace a two-story garage, and will house seven units including a setback penthouse on the top floor. The project is one of several luxury redevelopments that have come before the Landmarks Preservation Commission over the past year, bringing residents out in droves to protest. A megamansion at 85-89 Jane Street, a commercial makeover of the block spanning 46-74 Gansevoort Street and an enormous redevelopment of 500 Washington Street using air rights from Pier 40 have also received approval in the last six months.

Madeleine Thompson can be reached at newsreporter@strausnews.com