The Downtown Revitalization Plan of 1994 has helped spur growth in the lower Manhattan area by offering meaningful incentives to landlords and tenants. As such, market forces have forced owners and developers to re-evaluate the highest use potential of their holdings. Since technological and spatial requirements have changed drastically, a significant number of these older structures are no longer adequate for today’s “modern office”. Many properties have been removed from commercial inventory and are currently being converted to residential uses.

Our client’s property, a ten story steel frame structure originally built in1928 for the sporting goods retailer A.G. Spalding, is scheduled to be converted into residential lofts. The building, located at the corner of Ann and Nassau Streets, has wedge shaped floor plates comprising about 2,800 gross square feet on each level. All of the floors have southern and eastern exposures, while the upper five have a northern exposure along the lot line. As commemorated by a plaque placed by the New York Shakespeare Society, Edgar Allen Poe, in 1845, penned portions of the The Raven on the site of this project.

Particular stanzas of Poe’s poem were viewed as having analogous architectural potential. Special attention was given to the passage “Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter”. One interpretation suggests a system of walls, cabinets, doors, and panels that are movable. Conceptually, the space could be thought to pivot or flip. These elements allow the occupant the freedom to define and shape the boundaries of the plan’s open living area depending on life circumstances. Each apartment’s public and private areas could be reconfigured to accommodate individual needs. The penthouse addition, with its exaggerated cantilevered butterfly roof, creates a strong object / profile at the roof level. This provides the site with a new identity “for evermore”