Bloodless Supertall May Flow From Blood Center With New Zoning: Expert

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — The Blood Center could grow bigger as its stores of blood dwindle to nothing at all.

A single clause in the special agreement made with the City Council to permit the tower after years of false starts and a year-long bruising campaign could theoretically allow the Blood Center to throw off the restrictions placed on them while keeping the new, ultra-permissive zoning at their massive mid-block site, according to a zoning memo prepared for Community Board 8.

“It’s ambiguous,” said local zoning expert George Janes, who shared a copy of the draft memo he prepared on the potential effects that the Mayor’s "City of Yes for Economic Opportunity" could have on the Upper East Side.

It all hinges on two issues, Janes says: what the words “substantially similar” means, and if the proposed zoning text amendments are enough to allow the restrictive declaration, governing what can be built at the site, to be cancelled.

The Blood Center and the Department of City Planning told Patch they believed that the changes would not trigger the cancellation clause, but both said it would need further review.

Blood Center representatives maintain there are no plans to build anything other than the agreed upon 233-foot-tall laboratory building.

But if those zoning changes do permit the agreement — called a restrictive declaration — to be canceled by the Blood Center’s legal team, not only could the site potentially build larger and higher, but the much-cited life sciences mission used to justify the rezoning could be jettisoned as well.

That means the Blood Center could sell their lot — one of the largest in the Upper East Side at 45,000 square feet — to a developer who could build a Billionaire's Row-style 1,000-foot-tall supertall tower midblock without the need for any special approvals, and without the burden of including any sort of life science space such as a blood bank.

Squeezing blood from zoning code

After a bruising years-long campaign and about $1.6 million spent on lobbying, City Council and then-Mayor Bill de Blasio approved a controversial mid-block spot rezoning sought by the Blood Center.

The rezoning and the accompanying restrictive declaration permit the institution to construct a new 16-story, 233-foot-tall headquarters at its current, aging three-story mid-block building on East 67th Street between Second and First avenues, where the Blood Center first began 60 years ago.

According to the Blood Center's approved plans, they would occupy about a third of the new building, with the remaining floors to be leased out by Boston-based developers, Longfellow Real Estate Partners to other life sciences companies.

Longfellow, according to the Blood Center, is not currently the guaranteed partner.

The lot at 310 East 67th St.— which is uniquely large for the Upper East Side and has frontage on both East 66th and 67th streets — would be permitted to only build the agreed-upon tower, about 100 feet shorter than what was originally proposed, under what is called a restrictive declaration.

The declaration stated that the rezoning, from a contextual residential use of up to 80 feet in height to a much more permissive use that technically has no height restriction in that part of the Upper East Side, would only apply if the development met specific stipulations.

As agreed upon in 2021, that meant the $750,000, 233-foot-tall scientific research and development facility.

How similar is similar

The issue is a technical ambiguity, but it's one that has a longtime zoning expert concerned.

As Janes points out in his draft memo to Community Board 8, the agreement between the Blood Center and the City Council says that if the property is not developed in accordance with the special permit, which allows for the life sciences building to be developed at the site, it would only be allowed to develop the property under the new zoning rules with tight restrictions.

“If the Subject Property is developed or enlarged,” reads the November 2021 restrictive declaration, “it will only either … be developed or enlarged with the Proposed Development pursuant to and in accordance with the Special Permit,” or be subject to an as-of-right development restriction limiting the building’s height to 80 feet tall.

In other words: the city gave permission to build large and high at the site, but only for a laboratory and research facility. Otherwise, any development must match the rest of the block, despite the underlying land being rezoned for a much larger building.

Unless, the declaration states in a clause not present in earlier versions of the same document found on the city council website, there is a change to the zoning text amendment that allows them to develop something “substantially similar” without the need for the special permit on the site, which would trigger its cancellation.

“What does ‘substantially similar’ mean? That can be open to interpretation,” Janes said.
Part of the “City of Yes” rezoning would allow for similar life sciences developments in any commercial district without the need for a special permit.

And the rezoning from a residential to a commercial lot, which would remain in place regardless of the restrictive declaration, would allow the Blood Center to effectively build a similar building, but with a slightly different shape, as the proposed large floor plates were granted by the special permit and are larger than what the “City of Yes”is proposing.

“If you could do the development without the special permit,” Janes said, “then why do you need the restrictive declaration?”

According to Janes, if the restrictive declaration was canceled, the Blood Center could either build a life sciences building according to the “City of Yes” zoning proposals, or any other building allowed in the very permissible rezoned C2-7 parcel — including, due to the large lot size, a massive tower up to 1,000 feet tall.

“We're only concerned about it because it is a text amendment that changes what they can do on the site,” Janes said. “And a text amendment that changes what they can do on the site triggers the cancellation clause of the restrictive declaration.”

No plans to change, as of now

Both city officials and Blood Center representatives think that these concerns are overblown, and that the restrictive declaration would not be affected by the changes to the zoning text amendment.

Casey Berkovitz, press secretary at the Department of City Planning, said the department believes that the “City of Yes” zoning text amendments would simply not qualify as a trigger for the cancellation clause.

“We are not proposing to meet those conditions,” Berkovitz said, adding that the planning department feels “pretty confident that this would not significantly alter what’s going on with the Blood Center.”

A Blood Center representative told Patch that their plans remain the same and that they hope to hold a groundbreaking in 2025 once the appeal of a legal challenge holds its final hearing early next year.

“As we understand it today, the ‘City of Yes for Economic Opportunity’ has no impact on our plans,” a Blood Center spokesperson said.

From their perspective, the longtime blood collector and research center said they were happy with the building that was approved and there are currently no plans to change the scope of the project.

While they said that they believe the restrictive declaration would remain binding after the zoning text amendment changes, their legal team still needed to review the issue.

In a later comment, the Blood Center said that the proposed as-of-right floor areas and heights would be much smaller than what is allowed under their special permit, and would not trigger the cancellation of the restrictive declaration.

In addition to the East 67th Street site, the Blood Center also recently leased a massive 187,181-square-foot site in Westchester to replace their soon-to-shutter Long Island City location, where their landlord declined to renew their lease for 2025.

Janes told Patch that while he thinks the current stated commitment to the agreement negotiated with the City Council in 2021 is good, he wishes that the ambiguity could be fully erased by altering the restrictive declaration and removing the “substantially similar” cancellation clause, which could be proposed by a City Council member.

“There's lawsuits all over this sort of substantially similar language all the time,” Janes said. “So the fact that the Blood Center and city planning are saying this is great. And I hope they're right.”

Update 12/13/23: The Department of City Planning wrote after publication that the changes proposed in the "City of Yes for Economic Opportunity" would not affect either the special permit or the restrictive declaration. Spokesperson Casey Berkovitz wrote: “The memo’s speculation and conclusion is totally incorrect: the changes proposed in City of Yes for Economic Opportunity would not affect the Blood Center’s special permit or restrictive declaration.”

Related coverage:

• Upper East Side Blood Center Neighbors Lose Lawsuit Against Rezoning
• Blood Center Rezoning Approved By Council After Yearlong Battle
• Blood Center Opponents Invoke Rare Clause In Bid To Kill Project
• Blood Center Rezoning Nears Last Approval After City Council Deal
• Blood Center Hearing: New Concessions, But Opposition Holds Firm
• Supporters Of Blood Center Tower Step Up Lobbying Ahead Of Vote
• Who Supports The Blood Center's Upper East Side Expansion?