A $25‐Million Renovation Of Custom House Studied

A privately financed study has recommended the transformation of the Custom House on Bowling Green into a multi‐use structure containing stores, offices, a museum and a restaurant. The estimated cost of the renovation is $25million.

The ornate, 67‐year‐oid landmark has been vacant since the Federal Bureau of Customs moved its New York office to the World Trade Center five months ago.

Even before the move, city officials and downtown leaders had been pondering how to preserve the historic structure and put it to use. The Custom House Institute, a private group of lawyers, bankers and businessmen, has been working with city and Federal officials in the preservation. effort

The institute commissioned a $40,000 study and received a report last month, but declined to make it public pending a review. A copy of the report has been obtained by The New York Times.

The Custom House is built on the site of what was to be the first Presidential residence. The facade is embellished with stone carvings of shells, dolphins, rudders and masts, and dominated by 40 massive columns of Maine granite. A graceful staircase sweeps up from Bowling Green to the main entrance on the second floor. In the proposed renovation, the stairs would be removed and a street‐level entrance would be built on Bowling Green.

The proposal also calls for the replacement of the sloping slate tile mansard that surrounds the top floor, the seventh, with glass walls. The report, for which I. M. Pei & Partners, the architectural firm, was a consultant,isaid the removal of the main stairs would “greatly increase and its ornate windows with a glass wall would create more flexibility in the use of interior partitions.

In a memorandum introducing the report, James Parton, the former president of the American Heritage Publishing Company and the director of the study, termed the interior of the Custom House “a bewildering labyrinth.”

The report recommended eight major interior changes designed to “open up the building to light and to public accessibility.” Among them was the construction of a glass “lid” to cover the 15,000‐square‐foot courtyard in the center of the building.

The construction of the huge skylight, the report said, would allow the opening of the fivestory‐high rotunda that occupies most of the courtyard. The rotunda originally had a skylight that is now tarred over. The glass would be removed, though its framework would be left intact.

The report also recommended the replacement of stone walls with glass ones around the interior court between the third and seventh floors and the creation of an open arcade below that level.

The rotunda itself would be transformed into an “interior park” under the renovation plan. The report said that such a park might contain “a nook for tea, another for cocktails, newsstand kiosks, museum cabinets, lush plantings, comfortable seating.”

Mr. Parton pointed out that the renovation would require new elevators; the replacement of heating, piping, electrical and other mechanical equipment; air‐conditioning; fire protection, and a thorough cleaning.

“From the beginning,” he wrote, “we have all assumed that the building should house a constellation of activities, not Just a single function. [and] that some of these activities must be cultural.”

Anthony J. Peters of Cushman & Wakefield, Inc., the real estate firm, also acted as a consultant to the study, analyzing the financial prospects of a renovated Custom House.

He reported that the upper floors would “lay out better” for a hotel than for office space and that a hotel would be more compatible with the shopping and cultural uses planned for other areas of the structure than offices would be.

Nonetheless, Mr. Peters said, discussions with four major hotel chains suggested that the economic feasibility of a hotel on the site was now doubtful.

“In a literal sense,” Mr. Parton said in his introduction, “restoration of the Custom House is five to ten years premature. Not until Manhattan Landing and Bat tery Park City have been occupied and downtown Manhattan becomes a sevenday‐a‐week, 24‐hour‐a‐day community’ will some of the attractive proposed uses become feasible.”

What Mr. Parton said “may be the most important aspect of our entire plan” was the interest of the Museum of the American Indian, now at Broadway and 155th Street, in moving into a renovated Custom House. He said that the facility contains the world's largest and best collection of Indian artifacts and art but is underused because of its “obscure” location.

Mr. Parton reported that the board of the museum, which is owned by the Heye Foundation, had approved in principle the idea of moving it to the Custom House.

Mr. Parton suggested that the Custom House Institute, if it approved the renovation proposal, incorporate as a nonprofit corporation, hire a staff, establish a line of credit and begin negotiations with the General Services Administration, the Government agency that owns the property, for a transfer of title.

The Customs Service, under a program designed to become part of the national bicentennial celebration, has designated the Custom House “historic.”

The structure, designed by Cass Gilbert, was built in 1907 on a 1.5‐acre site previously occupied by “Steamship Row,” a group of six townhouses that were ultimately used as shipping company offices.

The site had previously been occupied by Government House, built in 1790 for George Washington, but, when the Government moved that year to Philadelphia, used briefly as the Governor's Mansion before the state government moved to Albany.

The land had earlier been used for a succession of Dutch, English and American forts whose batteries overlooked the harbor.

The Custom House Institute, which commissioned the study, has nine “sponsors.” They are: Hoyt Ammidon, chairman of the United States Trust Company; Herbert Brownell, the former Attorney General who is a member of the law firm of Lord, Day and Lord; Gustave L. Levy, a partner in Goldman, Sachs & Co., the investment banking firm; John V. Lindsay, the former Mayor; John L. Loeb, senior partner in the investment banking firm Loeb, Rhoades & Co., David Rockefeller, chief executive officer of the Chase Manhattan Bank; Robert W. Sarnoff, chairman of the RCA Corporation, and Whitney North Seymour Sr. and Cyrus Vance, partners in the law firm Simpson Thacher &

The funds for the study were administered by the New York Landmarks Conservancy, a private, nonprofit organization formed last May to work for the preservation of architecturally notable structures in the city. The chairman of the conservancy is Brendan Gill, drama critic of The New Yorker. Its members include former Mayor Robert F. Wagner and architects, lawyers and business

Other participants in the study included the Mayor's Office of Lower Manhattan Development; HRH Construction Corporation; Cosentini Associates and the Office of James Ruderman, both consulting engineers; Chermayeff & Geismar Associates, designers, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, the law firm.