Among the big competing TriBeCa condo projects 200 Chambers may have had a head start, but its neighbor just to the south at 101 Warren Street is actually shaping up as the more interesting property--suggesting once again that good things come to those who wait. The risk with buying into new development is that something better might just come along right as you've scheduled your closing. Drat! Click the jump to take a look inside a large mixed-use condo and rental apartment tower designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, featuring Whole Foods, Barnes & Noble, and a grove of pine trees in the middle of New York.
(All images above and below by SWIM by the 7th Art)
SOM (with Ismael Leyva) has delivered a tower-on-a-base configuration here that, like their Time Warner Center, houses a number of complex elements. There is the 35-story tower with 228 condominiums, a rental portion with 163 apartments, a large retail component, a parking garage, and a raised plaza with a landscaped pine tree garden. The main design element will be double-height off-set spandrels (or piers) that frame the window spaces. The developer is promising art too: a Lichtenstein tapestry in the lobby and a Joel Shapiro sculpture. The main attraction for buyers will be views, proximity to the new Goldman Sachs headquarters (where we suspect many will work), and the aforementioned Whole Foods.
The site is in the lower corner of TriBeCa, not far from Ground Zero construction, and part of the property is right on busy, noisy West Street. Still, we suspect the details here will attract a lot of interest. The condos will be a mix of simplex and duplex units, many with double-height outdoor spaces. Interiors will be by Victoria Hagan. What's lamentable here is how 101 Warren, along with 200 Chambers, are creating what will feel like a forbidding wall along West Street, dividing TriBeCa from Battery Park City. Concerns about overcrowding at the well-regarded Public School 234 are placing a lot of political pressure on Mayor Bloomberg to add much needed new school construction to the area. The successful push by Dan Doctoroff and Amanda Burden to populate downtown with new residents has clearly outpaced the services the city provides, and this will be an ongoing flashpoint for years, we suspect.
