NEW YORK—The groundbreaking on the controversial LG Electronics headquarters building in Englewood Cliffs is set to take place Thursday despite protests from both sides of the Hudson River.
Local legislators support LG’s plans, but opponents, including several environmental conservancies, four former New Jersey governors, and public officials from New York, have spoken out against the design—particularly the height of the building.
At 143 feet, the headquarters of LG Electronics USA Inc. would tower above all other buildings in the area. For decades, the zoning restricted buildings to a maximum height of 35 feet. The restriction was meant to ensure that buildings stay below the tree line.
Opponents said the eight-story building would disrupt the view of the Palisades from across the Hudson, including from the Cloisters Museum and Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which operates the Cloisters, has voiced objection to the height of LG’s headquarters.
Despite the opposition, local legislators have made way for LG, which has had offices in Englewood Cliffs for 25 years.
The site where LG would construct its headquarters was rezoned to allow for the taller building.
On Oct. 10 Englewood Cliffs Borough Council extended the rezoning to a larger area surrounding the new LG site, from Van Nostrand Avenue to East Palisade Avenue, which would allow buildings up to 150 feet high on lots of more than 25 acres.
Environmental advocates have complained that LG’s project goes against the wishes of the late philanthropist John Rockefeller Jr., who created the Cloisters and donated hundreds of acres of land on the other side of Hudson River to the state of New Jersey for parkland preservation.
His grandson, environmental lawyer Larry Rockefeller, a board member of the Natural Resources Defense Council, met with LG executives earlier this year, but no progress was made.
Scenic Hudson, a nonprofit that works to protect the Hudson River and valley, has filed two lawsuits against the rezoning. One of the lawsuits is going to an appeal, after a ruling in LG’s favor in August.
Hayley Carlock, an environmental advocacy attorney for Scenic Hudson, said if they win the legal battle LG would be forced to redesign its headquarters. If “significant construction has taken place, they could be required to take down whatever they have built,” she said.
LG said the building will be “built on private land a quarter mile back from the Palisades Cliff, not on park property, and not in the middle of the Palisades Interstate Park.” The company said that the structure will be barely visible above the tree line from the Cloisters, unlike many taller existing structures already on the New Jersey side of the river.
Actress and founder of the New York Restoration Project Bette Midler wrote a letter to LG Electronics U.S.A. chief executive Wayne Park in January, asking him to revise the height of the main office building to avoid “its potential negative impacts on the Palisades.”
Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. sent a letter to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in June asking him to preserve the Palisades.
Construction of the LG headquarters is expected to create more than 2,000 construction jobs, according to LG, and provide the state with significant tax revenue.
The 490,000-square-foot headquarters will cost an estimated $300 million to complete, and will house between 1,200 and 1,600 employees. The project is slated for completion in 2017.
