Garage will be part of large mixed-use project. HLP Properties LLC sought a special permit for a 718- space public parking garage on a Chelsea site spanning an entire city block between West 17th and West 18th Streets and Tenth and Eleventh Avenues. Access to the garage would be located on West 17th Street, a one-way westbound street. The 76,400- square-foot site currently contains a surface parking lot used primarily by the United States Drug Enforcement Agency for employee parking and storage of confiscated vehicles. The High Line, the abandoned elevated rail line slated to become open space, cuts through the lot.
The garage would be only one part of HLP’s proposed development plan for the site, consisting of a two-tower, mixed-use development with 870 residential units, 23,000 sq.ft. of retail space and a second parking garage for tenants with 180 spaces. HLP anticipates that only the 718-space public parking garage will require Commission approval.
HLP’s site lies within the City’s newly-created High Line Improvement Bonus area, which allows HLP to increase the density on the site to 764,000 sq.ft. (a 10 FAR) if HLP contributes to the High Line fund, and constructs a plaza and access to the new elevated open space. HLP anticipates that its large, city-block development plan will include a new public plaza on the site between the High Line and Tenth Avenue. Design of the plaza is still in development.
No one opposed the parking garage proposal at the Commission’s public hearing. The Commission unanimously approved, finding a need for increased public parking in Chelsea due to construction anticipated from the West Chelsea rezoning and to new demand created by visitors to the High Line. As part of the approval, the Commission determined that the garage would not create serious congestion or draw traffic through residential streets, noting that primary access to the garage would be from nonresidential portions of West 17th Street and Ninth and Tenth Avenues.
ULURP Process: The Planning Commission, as lead agency, issued a negative declaration. Community Board 4 and Borough President C. Virginia Fields approved. The Council did not request review of the application so the garage was deemed approved after the Commission’s approval.
CPC: High Line Towers Garage (C 050492 ZSM) (October 19, 2005). CITYADMIN