Carter's Review

This impressive, full-block residential project in TriBeCa has 227 condominium apartments and 163 rental apartments. The entire project is known as 270 Greenwich Street but the 32-story condominium section is known as 101 Warren Street at the corner of West and Warren Streets. The project also has 44 “townhomes” that have an entrance at 99 Warren Street, an 8-story loft home structure with loggias and two-story-high piers. The 12-story rental section of the project has its own entrance at 89 Murray Street. 

The developer of this large project is Edward J. Minskoff Equities. 

The complex, which was completed in 2008, was designed by Mustafa Abadan of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Ismael Leyva Architects designed the interior layouts and Victoria Hagan oversaw the interior design. Thomas Balsey Associates handled the landscape design for the project.

Bottom Line

A very attractive, full-block development very close to the World Trade Center site and Battery Park City, it also is across the street from the very handsome and excellent P.S. 234, which is noted for its delightful nautical design by Richard Dattner. The development, which has many excellent views of the Financial District, also has a large Whole Foods store and a Barnes & Noble bookstore.

Description

The distinctive arcades of the condominium tower resemble elongated checkerboards and they are covered with a sand-colored, textured granite from India and glass.

The building has an "Artrium" on the fifth floor with a pine tree forest with 101 trees resting on a bed of rust-colored river rock and an indoor/outdoor children's play area. 

101 Warren Street, whose east and west façades are slightly angled, is not far from public transportation, Battery Park City and the Financial District.

Amenities

The condominium building has a doorman, a concierge, a residential manager and a “Bloomberg Financial Lounge” with international newspaper service. It also has a “Board Room” facility with screening area, 24-hour attended parking, a garden maze, sun decks and a glass-enclosed health and fitness center. 

The developer commissioned a 14 ½-foot-high sculpture by Joel Shapiro for the building's entrance and its two lobbies are double-height and have large tapestries by Roy Lichtenstein.

In addition to the convenience of a large Whole Foods store and a Barnes & Noble store, the site is close to the World Trade Center site, the Hudson River esplanade and the Financial District.

Apartments

Apartments at 101 Warren Street have floor-to-ceiling windows and South American walnut Lapacho wood floors. Ceilings range in height from 10 to 12 feet. 

Kitchens have Bulthaup b3 fixtures and Sub-Zero, Miele and Bosch appliances and Master baths have Bianco Lucido lazed ceramic tiling, and Wenge wood vanities, Imperial Danby marble floors and countertops.

In the tower, most floors have 6 apartments, many with "great rooms" that adjoin library/third bedrooms. On floors 16 to 23, apartments range in size from about 1,602 to 2,372 square feet  whereas on floors 24 through 31 apartments range in size from about 1,592 to 2,530 square feet.

Penthouses have 20-foot-high outdoor loggias with Ipe wood decking and glass handrails and one- to four-bedroom units range in size from 923 to more than 4,000 square feet.

Duplex penthouse units with double-height loggia occupy the 32 and 33rd floors.

There are many different layouts.

One apartment has a 158-square-foot loggia that can be entered from its “great room,” its second bedroom, and its eat-in kitchen.

A duplex apartment has a very large corner terrace off its great room and open kitchen and beneath its master bedroom on the upper level.

One apartment has a large foyer that leads to a 33-foot-long great room with open kitchen and also leads down a 20-foot-long gallery to two bedrooms that open onto a small loggia as does the great room that also opens onto a library/third bedroom.

Another apartment has a small foyer that turns into a 27-foot gallery that leads to a library that opens onto a 30-foot-long great room with an open kitchen.

History

In the early 1960s, the 38.5-acre Washington Market Urban Renewal Area was cleared and its famous food market was relocated from this neighborhood to the Hunt’s Point section in The Bronx. In 1972, the International Brotherhood of Pulp, Sulphite and Paper Mill workers began construction on the very handsome Independence Plaza North, three towers with 1,339 middle-income apartments north of Chambers Street, which is one block north of this building.

Numerous small and medium residential projects, many of them conversion projects, began to transform the TriBeCa area into one of the city’s most desirable neighborhoods.

On April 10, 2001, the Giuliani Administration selected the Minskoff organization to develop a 34-story office building designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill at 270 Greenwich Street with a large landscaped plaza abutting the College of Insurance to the south.

Mr. Minskoff then asked his architects to come up with a residential plan for the site and their solution was a project with façades of alternating limestone piers, a forest of 100 trees, and the “artrium.”

The developer contributed $7.5 million for the maintenance of the Washington Market Park and another $3 million for a community center on an adjacent block. 

The surrounding neighborhood's educational districts were subsequently rezoned to determine which downtown residents can send their children to P.S. 234 as opposed to P.S. 377 in the base of the New York by Gehry skyscraper or P.S. 3 in the West Village or P.S. 130 in Chinatown. In 2011, it was determined that the residents of 101 Warren Street can continue to send their children to P. S. 234.

101 Warren is quite different from the 30-story condominium tower finished at about the same time one block to the north and developed by Jack Resnick & Sons at 200 Chambers Street.  There, Costas Kondylis, who replaced Sir Norman Foster when the community demanded a lower tower, covered it with a slick, vertical, glass design.