by Jacqueline Pezzillo Assoc. AIA LEED AP
Event: An Evening with MaryAnne Gilmartin
Location: Center for Architecture, 10.27.08
Speakers: MaryAnne Gilmartin — Executive Vice President, Forest City Ratner Companies & 2008 AIA NY Chapter Award Recipient
Organizer: Center for Architecture
Sponsor: Kramer Levin
The Beekman Tower by Gehry Partners.
Artefactory
During her 15 years at Forest City Ratner (FCR), Executive Vice President MaryAnne Gilmartin has set a new standard for female leadership in the real estate community and is the reason she is this year’s AIANY Chapter Award recipient. With the 76-story Beekman Tower designed by Gehry Partners, she is proving her perseverance with the torqued stainless steel residence scheduled to open in 2010.
“To make a great building takes a great many people,” Gilmartin stated — collaboration is a theme that resonates throughout her portfolio, which includes development of Atlantic Yards, also by Gehry Partners, and the New York Times Building by Renzo Piano Buliding Workshop with FXFOWLE Architects. The Beekman is an exercise in public/private partnership, a regular mission of FCR’s endeavors, which fuses 100,000 square feet of public school programs with 903 luxury rental units. The site, located on Beekman and William Streets, is adjacent to New York Downstate Hospital and will provide the healthcare facility with an ambulatory care facility as well. Originally slated for a mix of condos and rental units, the final design contains only leasable units — a shift many properties are adopting in response to the 70/30 split between renters and owners in Manhattan. The final program also reflects a decrease in retail and parking areas, and a significant increase in housing units.
Gilmartin describes Gehry’s tower as a “serious departure from the norm,” and championed the property as unparalleled in its grandeur and views yet equal to its peers in rent costs. Regulating the budget for a building of “starchitect” quality is challenging; Gilmartin attributes the financial success of Beekman to the demystification of the undulating façade through mockups and precise manipulation of the curves. Like any good developer, she believes, FCR “introduced a certain amount of sanity” to the design process. And like any great developer, the result will be a dynamic addition to Manhattan’s skyline.
Jacqueline Pezzillo, LEED AP, is the communications manager at Davis Brody Bond Aedas and a regular contributor to e-Oculus.