Council Member Feliz questions on building height and neighborhood context
Feliz asks how the project fits the neighborhood context given most buildings are lower. Architect Magnus Westergren says the 100-foot-wide Southern Boulevard supports 14 stories. Walker-Stewart notes only ~25% of the building is at maximum height, with the majority at 8-10 stories. Washington adds taller slimmer buildings cast shorter shadows than short squat structures.
And the community board has mentioned many things, including the fact that the height seems out of context with the rest of the neighborhood.
There are a few towers, including 21 at Evans on the Boulevard, 30 stories, also 800 East 180th and 820.
But that's only a few buildings out of the many buildings that are in the area, including right next to the building.
So just curious, what makes this project fit within the context of the surrounding neighborhood?
And why not bring it a little bit down so that it could be a little closer to everything around the building?
I mean, I think given the width of Southern Boulevard and Cortona Parkway, you know, it's an extremely expansive street.
kind of joining those two.
So given that, it seemed that 14 stories was a good height, you know, in terms of the scale of the street to the building.
And then obviously the height, again, echoes the family unit sizes and the overall number of units for it.
And the...
While the tallest point, the tallest height of the building is 14 stories, let's say on Mapes Avenue, it only makes up less than a quarter of the rest of the building.
So the majority of the building is 10 stories and 8 stories, as well as Sojourner's side is less than, I think like 44% is actually at the 16.
So the end.
As Magnus mentioned, we worked with his very thoughtful architecture team, and they were very thoughtful about where to place that height and how important step downs are and setbacks are.
And just relate to that council member, you know, one of the things that's important, and Magnus and Patrick can certainly speak more to this, but by having that, you still allow more light to come in.
And so if you have sort of a short squat structure, it casts a bigger, longer shadow over those places that we're trying to protect and allow light and air to come into.
So that's an important part as well.
Yeah, I will add just the size of the courtyards are also, that's the way that we can maintain pretty large at-grade courtyard spaces, you know, green spaces, is by making the building a little bit slimmer and a little bit taller in places.