Developer plans high-rise on Broadway

A developer is planning to build an 11-story apartment building on Broadway just south of the overpass for the Henry Hudson Parkway.

Lawyer Mitch Ross presented plans for the 120-unit structure to Community Board (CB) 8’s Land Use Committee on Oct. 13 as the developer moved to seek permission from the city’s Board of Standards and Appeals to build higher than zoning rules allow.

Mr. Ross said the site will not be profitable unless it breaks the zoning limit on height due to expected costs of demolishing a massive rock structure there.

“A financial feasibility study was done that shows that the as-of-right development has a $4 million loss and the proposed development doesn’t have a loss,” he said. “The hardship here is the rock removal. The rock removal alone is $4 million.”

Mr. Ross said nine stories of the building would house 66 two-bedroom units, 46 single-bedroom units and 8 studio apartments. Doctors’ offices and a pharmacy would go on the floors below that, which he described as a cellar and sub-cellar.

The Land Use Committee postponed an advisory vote on the matter to give the developer time to notify residents of the plans. A Department of Buildings (DOB) website lists Petra Realty LLC and Petra Broadway LLC as the owners of the property. Mr. Ross presented the plans under the address 5278 Post Road, though most of the building would occupy a swath of Broadway.

Several people who live on the same block as the proposed development strongly objected to the project, saying that destroying the rock structure would be a nuisance and the building would create congestion and harm the character of the neighborhood. The property faces Van Cortlandt Park on one of the few undeveloped, green stretches of north Broadway.

“My main objection is the congestion,” resident Gloria Torres said after the CB 8 meeting. “This is a bedroom community. We don’t want any commercial traffic there — a pharmacy, a doctor’s office.”