Renderings courtesy DXA Studio

Catching up: the proposed addition and formal combination of 385 Greenwich and 71 North Moore — Yves and Smith & Mills buildings — was approved by Landmarks this spring, after the architects —  DXA Studio — made some tweaks to the proposal.

Construction will likely start in the spring.

The buildings will be gutted to create two residences (I think there are three there now) and ground-floor retail. One story is being added to 385 Greenwich Street and two stories to 71 North Moore Street, to create a five-story building. The architectural features of the penthouse addition draw from the district’s historic commercial infrastructure. The penthouses’ arched steel spans evoke the spirit of the district’s market halls, rail hubs and rail lines. At the street level, projected storefronts — they bump out into the streetscape like boxes — from the late 1800s will be restored, along with the cutaway corner commercial entry (like Walker’s) that was removed in the mid-1900s.

This cool illustration shows the buildings’ history: the pink is 1805; the beige is 1815; the lime green is 1874; the darker green connects the buildings in 1898; the blue is a new storefront facade from 2016.

The new owner of 385 Greenwich and 71 N. Moore — the two 19th Century buildings that have Yves and Smith & Mills on the ground floor — has a proposal for an extensive renovation and restoration as well as an addition to create a two-family house, which will come before the Landmarks Commission next month. The two buildings sold in August for $8.5 million.

The biggest change, IMO, will be removing the stucco and revealing the 19th Century brick. At the suggestions of the Landmarks Commission, the architects made some tweaks to “reduce the clutter” and make the addition look a little lighter. They made the cornice for the storefront larger, (also like Walker’s). See the old renderings here.

The photo below shows the mock-up they built last summer for the addition on the roof.

The residential entrance will be at 71 N. Moore and the architects —— are attempting to make the floors of the two buildings connect where they can.

The buildings are part of the Tribeca West Historic District — see this post for the excerpts from the designation report. They were last purchased by the Gindi family, of Century 21, in 1997. (I believe the Gindis own much of the real estate under the restaurants operated by Matt Abramcyk’s Neighborhood Projects.)