More recently, Bank of New York Mellon briefly took a more enlightened view of its obligations as the operator of a POPS. For a period of several months in 2018, the signs warning the public not to enter the lobby were removed, and security guards did not challenge people seeking to walk through the lobby. This period happened to coincide with Bank of New York Mellon’s negotiations with the City to end their lease, and purchase outright the land beneath the building. A cynic might be forgiven for imagining that the owner belatedly brought itself into literal (if temporary) compliance, in order to avoid upsetting these negotiations. In any case, once Bank of New York Mellon had successfully completed the purchase (for $352 million), the signs were once again installed on the outside of 240 Greenwich, and the public was once more barred from the building. (Those signs remain there today. A reporter who attempted to enter the lobby and take photographs was ordered to leave by building security staff.) All of that noted, even with the lease no longer in force, use of the building’s public spaces was (and is) still governed by the “special permit” granted through the Washington Street Urban Renewal Area in 1969, which makes repeated reference to a “public lobby.”
Now, Bank of New York Mellon is seeking to give retroactive legal sanction to its de facto confiscation of a public amenity. An October 30 application filed by the company with the City Planning Commission (which that body will consider today) calls this proposal a “minor modification,” and argues that, “it is the Applicant’s understanding that the purpose of this portion of the lobby was to provide access to stairs/escalator that would allow members of the public to travel to and from the second level public walkway, and, consequently, that when the second level public walkway was eliminated pursuant to the 1990 Minor Modification, a ‘public lobby’ area was no longer needed to provide connection to this walkway.”
This application offers no evidence that the original plan (or its periodically modified and updated versions) did not intend to provide for public access to the ground-floor lobby—in addition to, and separate from, access to the pedestrian bridge. Nor does it make even an argument to that effect. Rather, it simply asserts that this was the firm’s “understanding.” Such an interpretation is contrasted by the City Planning Commission’s website, which currently lists the lobby at 240 Greenwich in its database of POPS, and documents that public access is required 24 hours per day.
The application by Bank of New York Mellon also acknowledges that, “the 1990 Minor Modification did not address a reference in the original ground floor drawing to a ‘public lobby’ on a portion of the ground floor,” meaning that the City Planning Commission had an opportunity to nullify the firm’s obligation to maintain a ground-level pedestrian easement, in light of the cancellation of plans for a sky-bridge, but chose not to do so.
In January, CB1 adopted a resolution noting that Bank of New York Mellon’s position, “amounts to a legal conclusion,” and that, “based upon the applicant’s view of the facts, and insofar as the facts are in dispute… the issue should not be adjudicated by agency or administrative action, but instead, by a more appropriate forum (i.e., the courts).”
The resolution continued, “the City of New York, through the CPC, should not simply waive the designation through a purported ‘minor modification’ to the Special Permit. Rather, the Committee believes the City has an obligation not to waive the ‘public lobby’ designation and an affirmative obligation to assert and pursue all available legal defenses to the designation.”
The resolution concludes by saying that, “CB1 opposes and urges CPC to reject the portion of the application that seeks ‘Minor modification of the Special Permit in order to replace a Special Permit drawing to reflect the… elimination of the reference to the ‘Public Lobby.’”
“We count on our City Planning Commission to uphold agreements the City reaches with private actors over the public amenities that are promised in exchange for property that will be used to make a profit,” explains CB1 vice chair Alice Blank, who also serves on the Board’s Land Use, Zoning & Economic Development Committee, and chairs its Environmental Protection Committee. “In this instance, over 40 years ago, Irving Trust Bank built an approximately one-million square foot, 23-story building, which promised to provide public access to its beautiful atrium space on two floors, and to plant trees and provide landscaping in the interior and exterior of the building, bringing beauty and value to both the bank and the community. That was the agreement, and there is no legitimate reason today to let the bank welch on its commitments to provide these public spaces. If the Commission agrees to deaccession a public space, it should conduct a Uniform Land Use Review Procedure process, as the law requires, and not allow for any attempt to circumvent this public process. Our commitment to the integrity of government and to the rule of law are undermined when institutions and actors are allowed to walk away from hard-won terms and conditions governing ownership and use of public property.”
One method for weighing the legitimacy of this proposal is to consider the value of the space in question. The area of the lobby that Bank of New York Mellon hopes to privatize is 7,600 square feet. (The original public area was much larger, as it included retail space on the second floor of the lobby, near access points to the elevated bridge, but 7,600 square feet are all that now remain.)
Two nearby commercial spaces are currently for sale in Tribeca, according to multiple online databases. One, located at 177 Duane Street, is 2,365 square feet, and is priced at $2,950,011, or $1,247.35 per square foot. The other, at 345 Greenwich Street, is 2,105 square feet, and priced at $5,500,005, or $2,612 per square foot. Using these comparables as benchmarks, it is possible to value the space within the lobby at 240 Greenwich Street as falling somewhere between $9,477,200 and $19,851,200. This appears to be the value of the property of that Bank of New York Mellon is asking the City’s permission to take away from the public.
In a separate (but related) development, Bank of New York Mellon is also proposing to upgrade the outdoor plaza surrounding its property with plantings, seating, a water fountain, and multiple bike racks. CB1 has endorsed elements of this plan, while expressing reservations about the proposed removal of a Citibike station at Murray and West Streets, and the installation of numerous security bollards on public sidewalks.
But CB1 also included a criticism of the implied quid pro quo that seems to link enhancement of the outdoor plaza to Bank of New York Mellon getting its way about privatizing the building’s lobby. “The Committee further questions the applicant’s motivation for seeking to remove the ‘public lobby’ designation at this time,” the January resolution observed, “particularly as it is coupled with that separate portion of the application that seeks to make improvements to the exterior of this commercial bank building. The Committee believes the owner of 240 Greenwich / 101 Barclay, BNY Mellon, improperly seeks to take its laudable business decision to improve the exterior of its property and bootstrap it to an unacceptable annexation of the interior ‘public lobby’ space for private use.”
The measure also noted that, “CB1 first objects to the coupling of two distinct actions into one application. If the applicant believes the designation of the ‘public lobby’ should be removed, it should be reviewed as an independent application on its own merits.”
Matthew Fenton
