Photo courtesy Morali Architects

Santiago Calatrava's 1,123-foot tower of cubes at 80 South Street has been dead for almost five years, but Cord Meyer (of Forest Hills fame) has selected a local designer to revive the site: Morali Architects.

Anthony Morali released elevation drawings of his 998-foot, 300,000-square foot design, which will feature apartments rising from a hotel base with garden space integrated into the tower.

In a phone conversation with The Observer Mr. Morali described his design to us. "It has some of the features of segmentation" in common with Calatrava's tower, he said, "but what we're really trying to do is integrate sustainability and gardens."

The tower will feature "vegetative roofs," which won't just be for show—"we're working with Don Pintabona, Robert DeNiro's chef. We're working on a shared kitchen and vertical farming," he explained, and suggested the building could send food to area eateries, including Jean-Georges, the three Michelin star restaurant at 1 Central Park West. "We'd grow things like exotic mushrooms and herbs."

The tower includes cut-outs every ten stories, which will eventually bloom into gardens. "Instead of having a balcony," Mr. Morali said, "residents would have a 3,000-square foot oasis." He hopes the gardens will help residents regain a sense of place, avoiding the feeling that "you live in an airplane or a dirigible." (Though now that he mentions it, living in a dirigible sounds preferable to some Manhattan housing options.) "This way you look out your window and see a vertical garden."

Mr. Morali told The Observer that he sees the diagonal articulations along the building's façade as imitating "the sheen of water when it hits the surface and you get subtle waves and angles."

The design is still in the initial stages of city review and has not yet been approved by the Department of Buildings, but the architects and developers have been in contact with planners about certifying the air rights that were purchased from neighboring landmarked buildings.

"Amanda Burden's always very hands-on. She wasn't there [at the meetings], but she's been looking at it," Mr. Morali said.

And it has already won a few fans. Nikolai Fedak of New York YIMBY wrote that "80 South Street's scale is impressive for the neighborhood, as the eastern side of the FiDi is lacking in height." But if it's built, he continued, it will "help balance out the presence of the new World Trade Center."

"This is the future," said Anthony Morali, principal of MStudio. Mr. Morali has been hired by developer Charles Fridman, of Shalimar Management, to design an eco-friendly, 26-story hotel at 100 Varick Street. Mr. Fridman filed plans for the project on June 24 with the Buildings Department.

A rather reticent Mr. Fridman, reached by phone at his Shalimar Management offices, confirmed that MStudio was designing the building and that it will have some environmentally friendly elements. 

Mr. Morali elaborated on said elements. "Basically, 90 percent of solar panels use crystalline wafers," he said. "It's your basic solar panel. You can't see through it. It's about 2.5 inches thick."

100 Varick will use something new: "Basically, we're using a glass which is called 'amorphous thin film glass.'"

According to Mr. Morali, the solar energy-capturing elements are applied in a gaseous state to the glass, allowing the glass to be much thinner, about a quarter of an inch thick, and therefore more malleable. It will enable the hotel facade to produce between 80 and 100 kilowatts, generating between $40,000 and $50,000 in electricity savings yearly. Not to mention all of the tax credits Mr. Morali is expecting from the federal, state and city governments.

Mr. Morali said this is the first time the technology will be used on the skin of a building in New York City. (Something along the same lines was used to encase the mechanicals atop Durst's 4 Times Square, he added.)

For his part, Mr. Fridman said he wouldn't have many more details on the hotel's construction timeline for a while yet.

"It's a question of getting everything approved," Mr. Fridman said. "So, to give you a time, exactly, I don’t know. That’s six months away before we get everything approved."

Mr. Fridman's other projects include 540 West 50th Street and 90 Clinton Street.

drubinstein@observer.com