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New
Faculty Housing Planned At 110th Street
The University is planning to construct an apartment building on 110th Street and Broadway that will help alleviate the faculty housing crunch that has worsened in recent years. The new building will likely rise between 12 and 20 stories, on the southeast corner where a D'Agostino supermarket now stands. The architectural firm Beyer Binder Belle is working on various design options for the building. In addition to apartments for faculty, preliminary plans include some retail and commercial space and possibly an elementary school to be run by the University. Columbia recently completed a two-year process of working with all of its schools to determine just how many faculty apartments are needed and concluded that an additional 80-100 would be ideal. While plans for the new building initially aimed at creating that many units, it will be "significantly less than that," according to Emily Lloyd, executive vice president for administration. All full-time faculty members are eligible for University housing. Columbia-owned apartments are rented at below-market rates, and are seen as a supplement to a professor's salary. Since urban living has become fashionable again and Morningside Heights has undergone its own revitalization, more faculty want to live near campus, where apartments have become scarce and more expensive. "In the past we could accommodate them not immediately, but in a reasonable amount of time. Over the past three years that has really changed," Lloyd says. "Deans are saying that when new faculty don't come, part of the reason is because we can't give them an apartment within a reasonable amount of time." Over 100 faculty members are currently wait-listed for apartments. The University already owns the land where the new building will stand. Current zoning allows the building to rise to a maximum of 12 stories, but Columbia may petition for rezoning that would allow a higher building. The city planning commission has already said that it does not want "spot zoning" for just one corner. If rezoning is approved, all four blocks at the intersection could potentially be developed with high-rises. Right now only the northwest corner has a building over two stories high. Some community residents are concerned about over-development that they fear would obscure sunlight and congest the 110th Street subway stop, among other services. "Mostly we don't want to turn our neighborhood into the West 60s," says Daniel O'Donnell, chair of the housing/land use committee of Community Board 9, the southern boundary of which falls at 110th Street. "People move here because of the human proportions. They want to be able to see the sky and see the sunshine." Any Columbia expansion through off-campus construction tends to touch nerves in the community that are not fully healed from the 1960s, when the school's plans to build a gym in Morningside Heights touched off the '68 demonstrations and left University-community relations at a low. Recently the University has been more sensitive to community reaction and shown a commitment to collaboration with the community on renovations and construction in the neighborhood. For example, at 14 stories, the new Broadway Residence Hall at 113th Street is taller than Community Board 9 initially wanted. But as part of a compromise, a lighter brick was used to match neighboring buildings, the façade of a historic fraternity house was preserved, and a public library branch was included and moved up from its planned location in the basement. Lloyd stresses that she has met with both community boards early in the project's planning stages. She says, "I find that that causes more controversy at the start, but more comfort at the conclusion."
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