Baruch College Plans $250 Million Renovation

In an effort to modernize and unify its facilities into one campus, the City University of New York's Baruch College has developed a $250 million master plan for the first phase of a planned renovation program. Construction would begin in 2008.

Under the preliminary plan, Gordon Kipping of G Tects, a New York-based architect, will design the renovation of 17 Lexington Ave., the college's first facility, which it recently renamed the Lawrence and Eris Field Building.

The work on the building, which is at the corner of E. 23rd Street, involves adding a glass wedge atrium with a sculptural stair to the existing 16-story structure while keeping the original brick façade intact. The new features will effectively create a through-block building, with the stairs leading to a new underground connection between 23rd and 24th streets that will link to the other campus buildings.

In addition, the architect intends to take out about two-thirds of the existing 150- by 200-ft. floor slabs from the Field Building's bottom three levels in order to construct a 1,200-seat, open-space auditorium.

Under terms still in development, Kipping will work with Frank Gehry, an architect based in Los Angeles. They have also collaborated on the Issey Miyake store in TriBeCa as well as on designs for a basketball arena that Forest City Ratner Cos. plans to build in downtown Brooklyn.

Javits Center Design Team Set

The Javits Development Corp. has selected British architect Richard Rogers and FXFowle of New York to design the $1.4 billion expansion of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on Manhattan's West Side. A final design is expected around the end of the year.

Under the current proposal, exhibition space will grow from 760,000 to 1.1 million sq. ft. by extending the center one block north from 39th Street. In addition, the plans call for development of a 1,500-room hotel.

In early fall, the architects embarked on a 45-day planning phase in which they consulted local residents, hotel owners, and tourism industry professionals. Rogers, known for his co-design with Renzo Piano of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, was selected following the development corporation's decision to >> reject preliminary designs by St.Louis-based Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum.

Coney Island, the Sequel

Not long after New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a plan in September to spend $83.2 million to restore Coney Island's charm, a private developer unveiled a proposal for a $1 billion makeover of the area into a Las Vegas-style tourist attraction featuring water slides and dirigibles.

Joseph Sitt, a local women's clothing entrepreneur, has been buying patches of Coney Island real estate through his company, Thor Equities. That land now amounts to close to 12 acres spread mostly along the waterfront, which Sitt wants to convert into a destination not at all like the hot dog stands and shoot-the-freak attractions of the Coney Island many New Yorkers know.

His plans include a four-star, 500-room hotel, movie megaplexes, an indoor water park with a 100-ft. water slide, and tourist-carting dirigibles, which according to an account in New York magazine would lift off every ten minutes and advertise the complex around the city. Sitt also intends to offer incentives that would keep existing businesses in the area.

Even as Thor is seeking private investors, its in-house staff has prepared preliminary drawings.

The mayor's plan entails new plazas, unspecified additional features on the boardwalk, affordable housing, and a hotel and spa. Now in design, the redevelopment is slated for completion in 2009.

New Brooklyn Bridge Park Design

Designs for Brooklyn Bridge Park, a 1.3-mi. stretch along the East River, are moving closer to realization.

Originally proposed in the 1990s, the park plan has grown from 67 acres in 2002 to 85 acres in a recent Draft Environmental Impact Statement. The plan, submitted by the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corp., an Empire State Development Corp. subsidiary, now includes five piers stretching onto the water, a berm with trees shielding the park from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, a 185-slip marina, and one 16-story residential tower at the park's end in Brooklyn's DUMBO neighborhood.

On the opposite tip, the design calls for a 30-story condominium tower at Pier 6, although some community members, supported by Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, want to cap it at 20 stories. The park will undergo a final design phase after the development corporation approves preliminary plans, which it is expected to do before the end of the year.