Proposal: SPC Idea Bank

Click on the form to the right to submit YOUR ideas!

Many aspects of the our SPC campus are inflexible — we can't make major changes to our buildings, our landscape, our commercial tenants, or major projects on the fly. However, we can anticipate times at which changes can be made. I suppose that our Board or Management has already assembled some framework to keep track of certain circumstances, but there has historically been no way for Shareholders to contribute their own ideas. I propose that Shareholders be invited to contribute ideas to an "Idea Bank". The Idea Bank would consist of a webform accessible from within the portal, that would invite Shareholders to share the title, summary and details of their great ideas, and, optionally, their names.

The way I envision this working is that, upon periodic review, Management can accept ideas that have been submitted. Ideally these ideas would be published to the portal with options for people to upvote or comment on them.

Below are a few ideas that have come to my mind over the years. Again, most of these are not actionable at this moment. But I believe we should seize on them if the option arises.

 

 

Scaffolding Plan Behind Building #2

We've seen more than our share of scaffolding over the years, and will see more the next time Local Law 11 inspections start. A pet peeve of mine is how scaffolding is erected in the courtyard behind Building #2 and along the parking lot. The path is already very narrow, and when scaffolding is erected, walking with a companion, an aide, a stroller, a shopping cart, a walker, or a wheelchair is quite difficult.

Why not make the scaffolding wider — instead of crowding the edge of the sidewalk, why not extend it another foot or two onto the parking lot?

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Planters Crowding Walkway Behind Building #2

The path running alongside Building #2 and the parking lot is very narrow. Walking with a companion, an aide, a stroller, a shopping cart, a walker, or a wheelchair is quite difficult. This is compounded when scaffolding is erected in conjunction with Local Law 11 or other construction projects.

But aside from it being a narrow walkway, it is also crowded with gigantic cement planters that are planted with dense bushes that overrun their containers. I believe these should be be moved today to better suit the layout of the space — on this portion of our property, these planters should be angled in relation to the nearby seating areas and set back from the walkways.

In the accompanying image, yellow represents the current position of the planters, green represents the recommended position. In my opinion, the planter marked with a red X should be removed from this location.

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Corner Store

There was a time when The Pickle Guys had both their corner retail store, and the space next door — their 'Dillers' eatery. That was an opportunity! I would have loved for our Board to throw some money at it — we should have busted open the Essex Street wall in order to turn the corner property into s proper restaurant, and facilitated their move of the retail business to the adjacent space.

A restaurant on this corner would connect us more strongly to the thriving economy of Essex Street, and with the generous outdoor seating possibllity on Essex Street, such a restaurant could itself become an anchor property for our commercial strip.

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Doughnut Plant Office

Doughnut Plant first opened here and became a New York sensation. They quickly expanded from one of our storefronts to two, and then added four more NYC locations, designating the one in Brooklyn as their "headquarters". I don't want to mess with our most famous tenant! But their original location has become an office, and the windows are papered over in a most unappealing way.

Is there any way for us to demand better use or reclaim this space? I suppose we might find a business that would love to have a store front next door to this famous store. A new business could make our neighborhood more convenient for our residents, and more valuable all-around.

It turns out that the city actually mandates that storefront windows cannot be wholly blocked — NYC Zoning Resolution (ZR Chapter 7 - Special Urban Design Regulations) states:

"The ground floor level street wall along a primary frontage shall be glazed with transparent materials which may include show windows, transom windows or glazed portions of doors... Such transparent materials shall occupy at least 50 percent of the surface area of such ground floor level street wall between a height of two feet and 12 feet..." Covering storefront windows contributes to dead zones on sidewalks.

ZR Chapter 7 goes on to state that the purpose of this is to: "...promote a lively and engaging pedestrian environment" and to "prevent the proliferation of blank walls at the ground floor level."

Bottom line: permanently covering the entire window with paper is also a violation of this transparency requirement. We have an interest in a dynamic neighborhood and good and accessible stores. At the very least, we should start to demand some style standards — clear windows, and lack of street-facing clutter from this tenant.

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My Little Village Playground

We have My Little Village Preschool as a commercial tenant in Building #4. They rent classroom space and the fenced-in part of the playground behind the building. I propose removing the fencing and reconsidering whether we want to rent out that playground space.

There is a lot of fencing behind Building #4 that includes a fenced-in playground of our own in the middle of the courtyard. All the fencing was designed at a time when SPC had no holistic plan of what to do with our property.

A recent initiative to reimagine our space was undertaken in the context of the recently-scuttled Lobbies & Grounds Project. The plans that were advanced did away with the preschool's fence entirely in the context of facilitating movement between buildings and across our property.

Although the Lobbies & Grounds Project as originally envisioned won't be pursued, there are elements that are worth considering! The private gated playground behind building #4 hinders the smooth flow of pedestrians across our property between the Building #3 / #4 courtyard to Hester Street.

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Treacherous Staircase Behind J-Section

All SPC towers can be accessed from the front door or a side/back door. For the most part, the side/back doors exit onto a sidewalk that allows easy passage through to the street or courtyard.

However, there is one exception — the back exit behind the J section opens to a treacherous staircase. The stairs are steep and dangerous in inclement weather, and cannot be navigated with a shopping cart or walker, let alone a stroller or wheelchair.

Addressing this is not urgent — the back exit behind the H Section is nearby! And remedying this would be very complex due to the change in ground level between the front and back of the building.

However, if we were to bring in design teams to, say, build a new gym in the space alongside that exit, or spend $32 million on a renovation that ties together interior and exterior aspects of our property, this issue ought to be considered.

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The BNH Driveway

I'm not naive enough to expect that we'll revisit the Air Rights deal from 2018... But never say never! And in case we do ever enter into discussions with the developer, I hope this idea will be included in the mix.

SPC owns the driveway on Cilnton Street, adjacent to the garage driveway, that runs behind the Bialystoker Nursing Home. The driveway is detached from the rest of our property, and the only use we've found for it is outdoor bicycle parking. Notably, the Bialystoker Nursing Home building has a back door which exits onto this driveway, and a permanent easement allowing them to use it.

If we were ever to enter into new discussions with the owner (or future owner) of that property, selling this driveway ought to be part of the conversation. It can be sold cleanly — without the convoluted merging of lots or allowing their residents onto SPC grounds that made the 2018 proposal so convoluted. At the time of our original investigation, the Air Rights for this parcel would have been worth $9M, and the physical property would have increased that value.

 

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Seward Lane

The Hester Street lot used to be derelict and closed; Essex Street used to be sketchy. Opening up the Hester Street lot contributed to revitalizing the neighborhood.

In my view, we have another opportunity to revitalize our neighborhood — I propose we open up a pathway on the strip I will refer to as "Seward Lane", that runs behind Building #3 alongside the Seward Park Library. This can improve the quality of life for residents when on our property and our neighborhood at-large, and also improve our local economy.

Read the whole article on this topic — with details, discussion and analysis — here.

 

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Ideas Submitted by Neighbors

Neighbors have written in with ideas to improve our grounds and amenities. These are listed below.

Some ideas that were submitted that don't pertain directly to property, grounds, or amenities, but these ideas are being published here for now.

 

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