A joint venture between Westbrook Partners and Atlas Capital Group has officially closed on a $100 million air rights deal for its St. John’s Terminal project in the West Village.
The transaction, which required approval of several city agencies, closed last week, according to a representative for the seller, the Hudson River Park Trust.
The air rights came from Pier 40 at Hudson River Park. The sale allows Westbrook and Atlas to build bigger at 550 Washington Street, the development site across the street from the pier. The joint venture plans to build a 1.7 million s/f mixed-use project. Once construction is completed, the site will contain five buildings with about 1,500 affordable and market-rate housing units.
When the sale was first announced last year, several community groups opposed the St. John’s Terminal project, pointing to issues such as traffic congestion and the influx of big box stores. “The project is ludicrously oversized,” Andrew Berman from the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation said during a City Planning hearing.
The developers tried to quell dissent by offering concessions. According to a previous report from Curbed, they pledged to build a 10,000 s/f recreational center and remove a rail structure to create a more open entrance to Hudson River Park. Meanwhile, the developers swayed legislators by promising to exclude big box stores and conducting a traffic study. The project will also be subject to an amended standard for area median income.
The project cleared one of its first hurdles last October, when the City Planning Commission approved the sale. The deal received approval from the City Council a few months after.
The Hudson River Park Trust plans to use the proceeds from the sale to repair the steel pilings at Pier 40. The agency was represented by Wallace Schwartz, Sander Ash and Melissa Goldberg from law firm Kasowitz Benson Torres.
