Local Advocates Oppose Another Little W. 12th St. Tower

A local advocacy group is urging a city panel to reject a zoning change that would permit a 14-story luxury tower to go up on Little West 12th Street, a campaign it is pursuing alongside efforts to kill another tower project around the way.

Village Preservation wrote to the NYC Board of Standards and Appeals on Dec. 5, urging them to reject the financial hardship-based zoning variance being sought by Jerry Noury, a former nightclub performer seeking to build the tower at 51 Little W. 12th St.; the site is currently a vacant lot.

Other parties, such as Community Board 2, State Assembly Member Deborah Glick, and a group called Save Our Gansevoort, are also urging the board to reject the zoning variance.

Village Preservation Executive Director Andrew Berman reiterated his case at a Dec. 9 virtual meeting of the board. He said that Noury was seeking the variance “based on false and misleading information,” and argued that permitting the tower “would substantially negatively impact the character of the surrounding neighborhood.”

Noury is perhaps best known for jamming out on a patented arrow-shaped wireless keyboard at hotspots such as Studio 54, in the 1970s and 1980s (the “keytar” could reportedly shoot water or fire). As a 2007 article by Lincoln Anderson makes clear, the colorful Noury–who also went by the first name “Novac”—has long since pivoted toward aspirational real estate moguldom.

His proposed luxury residential tower on West 12th Street would need the zoning alterations to soar to its desired 200-plus feet, and Noury is citing a “high water table” and the narrowness of the lot as cost burdens to development.

This is nonsense, Berman counterargues, who believes any cost burdens are “self-imposed” by Noury himself. Berman argues the West 12th Street lot being vacant “saved [Noury] the expense connected to demolition,” and claims that his “failure to maintain” the previous building—which Noury owned—led to its demolition in the first place.

“It would be painfully ironic if [Noury] were rewarded for those violations by being granted a zoning variance at least in part upon conditions [Noury] himself seems to have created,” Berman wrote.

In his letter and subsequent appearance before the Board of Standards and Appeals, Berman also expressed his skepticism that building such a tower was the only “profitable” use of the lot. He believes that its proximity to the High Line, the Whitney Museum, and Little Island could make it an easy draw for retail foot traffic.

“Office space, gallery space, showroom space, and food-related spaces are at a premium in this neighborhood, which has become world-renowned as a destination,” Berman wrote in the letter. “Yet the application claims to be unable to make a reasonable return with these as-of-right uses.”

Under Berman’s stewardship, Village Preservation has also been busy trying to kill a fairly similar 600-foot-tall tower project down the street, which is set to be built on the city-owned site of a former meat market.

Specifically, Berman’s organization wants the development team known as Gansevoort Square Partners—which was selected by the Economic Development Corporation in late October—to “eliminate” all luxury units from the project, as well as reduce its height by “50 to 75 percent.”