chris_ny

11 times square!!!

TalB

FOR DEVELOPERS, LIFE'S A DITCH - New York Post
FOR DEVELOPERS, LIFE'S A DITCH

PROMINENT MIDTOWN LOCATIONS STUCK IN IDLE FAR TOO LONG

Posted: 4:23 am
August 26, 2008

LARGE, empty holes and vacant lots at prominent locations look jarringly out of place in thriving Midtown.

Nothing looks worse than a project stuck in a holding pattern after old buildings are demolished. There are at least four of them now, and they aren't pretty.

Of course, Manhattan properties often morph like caterpillars into beautiful butterflies; the current sites of the Four Seasons Hotel and 1 Bryant Park looked miserable for years before the projects got off the ground.

One day the current unsightly state of certain sites will be forgotten. But for now, they're sitting idle and awaiting instructions. Here are the ones to watch when developers and dealmakers come back from their Labor Day vacations. (All developers declined comment.)

* Drake Hotel Site - Macklowe Properties bought the old Drake at Park Avenue and 56th Street two years ago and demolished it. The company has since been buying up retail townhouse buildings and air rights on East 57th Street, aiming for an L-shaped site wrapped around the office tower at 450 Park Ave.

The project will be called 440 Park Ave. The Macklowe people have been talking to prospective office, hotel and retail tenants all along, even during the company's recent near-death experience resulting from the credit crunch.

It will be the first ground-up project from Harry Macklowe's son, Billy, now company chairman and CEO. It will surely reflect all the energy and creativity he can bring to it.

* Extell's West 57th Street Jumbo - Gary Barnett's outfit put together this site across the street from Carnegie Hall and stretching to 58th Street. Last year, he told us he's negotiating with "5-star" hotel companies to operate part of a 50-story tower that will also have condos.

However, excavation stopped months ago. Extell has yet to file plans with the Buildings Dept. The pause occurs even as Extell is constructing a 55-story hotel/condo tower on West 45th Street and its "diamond tower" on West 47th Street.

* The Ritz Thrift Site - Barry Sternlicht's Starwood Capital bought the old fur shop site two years ago after the previous owner leveled the low-rise building. Since then, the narrow but highly visible site tucked between the Economist building and the Buckingham Hotel has been an eyesore.

At one point, Sternlicht supposedly planned to build a luxury hotel flagged as his company's Crillon brand. Sources say he also sought to buy neighboring properties and/or air rights - but now might sell instead.

* The 8th Avenue Stall - Two weeks ago, we noted that work has ceased at the Tribeach development site on the west side of the avenue between 46th and 47th streets, and there was a buzz that it might be put up for sale.

That hasn't happened yet - at least not officially. However, we now hear Tribeach has quietly reached out to prospective development partners and that its lenders, including mortgage-holder Bank of Scotland, were in discussions over how to proceed.

Tribeach lawyer Elise Kessler said she's heard of none of those scenarios. The bank declined to comment.

Meanwhile, enjoy the fine view of a ghost sign unveiled by midblock demolition touting a long-gone rooming house offering "steam heat."

__________________
I have respected your views, so I expect you to do the same for me.

TalB

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/re...ref=realestate
An Unshowy Setting for Gems

By CHRISTOPHER GRAY
Published: August 29, 2008


From left, Office for Metropolitan History and G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times

AN ART DECO JEWEL From left, views of the diamond district in 1943 and current views of 29 West 47th Street, the Bond Building. It has three panels of aluminum across the second floor, and stripes of black brick alternating with what was once lemon yellow.


Office for Metropolitan History

A view of the diamond district in 1962.

THE diamond district, that block-long stretch of 47th Street from Fifth Avenue to the Avenue of the Americas, seems so firmly a part of Manhattan that it is hard to imagine any other destination for shoppers seeking high-priced gems, but in fact there once was one.

That earlier mecca was Maiden Lane, four blocks north of Wall Street, but in the 1920s, jewelers moved uptown in droves. The shift is instructive about the past — and perhaps the future.

For decades after 1840, Maiden Lane was synonymous with the jewelry and precious-stone industry in New York. In 1924, The New York Times stated that “the bride-to-be who could show a ring from Maiden Lane was thrice happy.”

But the jewelry trades were at least twice unhappy with their location, attempting unsuccessful moves uptown in the 1870s and early 1900s. Each time, the restless jewelers returned.

By the 1910s, though, the building stock on Maiden Lane was old, and the growing finance and insurance industries nearby could pay far more for office space than a watchmaker could.

Real estate developers live off such tensions, and in 1923 Fenimore C. Goode, a broker, promoted construction of a new building at 20 West 47th Street specifically to tempt the Maiden Lane firms. The entrenched did not go gently, and in February 1924 an advertisement in The Times offered space at 35 Maiden Lane, claiming boldly that the area was “the permanent jewelry centre” of New York.

Only a week later, however, The Times noted that tenants were showing a “marked alacrity” in taking space in Mr. Goode’s 47th Street project. That building was soon joined by others at 40 West 47th and 1 West 47th.

Nevertheless, in March, The Times stated flatly in a headline, “Jewelry Trade to Remain Downtown,” and it said that “removal talk has practically disappeared.” A year later, in March 1925, The Times again maintained there was “no extensive migratory wave.”

Two months afterward, the newspaper said that a fourth big new jewelry building was under way, at 66 West 47th; that property values had doubled since 1923; and that “within the coming year 75 percent of the jewelry business will be centered in this district.” Three other new structures were also planned.

Simultaneously, The Real Estate Record and Guide reported that the 47th Street block “has almost overnight become New York’s new Maiden Lane.”

In an article in December 1925 in Building Investment and Maintenance magazine, Raymond Bill recounted the history of the struggle, and clearly he considered it over. He said that the new buildings uptown had large windows for manufacturing, often with side lights protected by smaller structures, and that there were separate entrances for white-collar employees and laborers.

He noted that the National Jewelers Board of Trade had earlier weighed in on the side of Maiden Lane, which had very good police protection, but then also ultimately moved, to 22 West 48th.

Few people pay attention to the buildings on West 47th Street — it’s the merchandise that attracts pedestrians. Thus, a knowledgeable observer may walk down this block and examine with fresh eyes a commercial and architectural district created in just a few years.

Most of the buildings are humdrum. Mr. Goode’s first project, at 20 West 47th, designed by Sommerfeld & Steckler, looks no different from any other loft structure.

Only one building on the block really stands out: the 1931 Bond Building, at 29 West 47th. It was designed for Allan Bond by the little-known — unknown, really — firm of Pruitt & Brown. We know from an article in The Times that Mr. Bond, a cotton broker, lived in a house on the site in 1925. That article also reported that his longtime butler, Harry Bennett, had conspired with thieves to steal $200,000 in illegal liquor from his trusting employer.

In 1931, Mr. Bond used the house site for the structure that bears his name. It is on the north side of the street and has 16 stories of striking setbacks, with broad horizontal stripes of black brick alternating with a color so soiled that it appears to be a uniform orange. But the hue was described by The Real Estate Record and Guide in 1930, when the building was being erected, as shades of yellow waxing to lemon.

Three magnificent panels of then-novel aluminum, now highly corroded, run across the second floor, worked in sweeping rays emanating from behind cloud-type forms and ornamented with scalloped haloes. Four sculptures of knightly-looking figures, incised in polished Norwegian granite, flank the panels. Running up the facade are the remnants of an aluminum-and-glass strip, originally illuminated, terminating in a brilliant sunburst, like “a bird of magnificent plumage,” The Record and Guide said.

In a city where the Art Deco has received fawning attention for decades, this is truly an undiscovered gem.

Now the developer Gary Barnett is building a 40-story tower toward the west end of the block, on a site going through to 46th Street. Although some space will be reserved for the diamond trade, offices with Midtown-level rents are clearly at the gates of what has been a near-industrial district.

It may be only a matter of time before West 47th Street becomes the Maiden Lane of the 21st century.

E-mail: streetscapes@nytimes.com

__________________
I have respected your views, so I expect you to do the same for me.

TalB

Hotel keeps ’em guessing as business it’s messing
Volume 21, Number 16 | The Newspaper of Lower Manhattan | Aug. 29 - Sept. 4, 2008

Hotel keeps ’em guessing as business it’s messing

By Albert Amateau

The project at 180 Orchard St. that began more than three years ago looks like a derelict construction site whose future is a mystery. But one thing is certain to some:

“It killed the business on this block,” said Enrico Cicalese, who works at Rosario Pizza across the street from the site, which stretches from Orchard to Ludlow Sts. in the middle of the block between E. Houston and Stanton Sts.

The latest word on the street — that the developer, Morris Platt, has sold the site to a “big Chicago developer” — has not been reflected in the records at the city Department of Finance. The department’s latest entry for change of ownership was in 1998, when the property went from Moe Arbisser and ZVI Merchandising Corp. to 180 Orchard St. Associates. Platt did not return calls.

The reinforced concrete frame of the building was three stories high on May 29 of this year when the Department of Buildings issued a stop-work order on the proposed 26-story, mixed-use hotel and residential building.

“A department review raised objections to the plan,” said Carly Sullivan, a Buildings Department spokesperson, who did not give any reasons for the department’s objections. The air rights for a 26-story building could be one reason for the objections, according to Susan Stetzer, Community Board 3 district manager.

The stop-work was temporarily lifted on June 25 for safety reasons to remove the wooden forms from the third-floor concrete, the department spokesperson said.

The work prompted rumors and online reports that the developer was dismantling what he had built. The rumors, however, have proved so far to be wishful thinking on the part of neighbors, who have had their fill of “construction hell” on Orchard and Ludlow Sts. between Houston and Stanton Sts.

The 180 Orchard St. project is just across from the east side of the recently completed 18-story Thompson LES hotel, at 190 Allen St., piling construction woe upon construction woe on Orchard St.

To make matters worse, in the eyes of neighbors, the building at 163 Orchard St., a block away between Stanton and Rivington Sts., has been demolished and a 10-story hotel is to be built on the site, according to Department of Buildings records.

“I understand that people are very frustrated and rightly think it’s not fair for them to be so subjected to these horrible construction conditions,” Stetzer said. “But it’s important to recognize what can be done legally and what can’t be resolved,” she said. And the length of time of construction on a project is not one of the things that can be resolved legally, Stetzer said.

Economic reality should compel a developer to finish construction as soon as possible to make the project earn revenue.

But that reality hasn’t worked for Platt, the developer of 180 Orchard St.

Back in May 2005, the Department of Buildings issued a demolition permit to Onsite Demolition Truck Co. to take down the existing building. In November of that year, Remy Issac, of Issac & Stern architects, applied on behalf of the developer for a permit to build an eight-story residential hotel on the site, according to the Buildings Department.

The plan was “professionally certified,” the official name for the process commonly known as self-certification. The department randomly audits 20 percent of self-certified applications, in addition to other self-certified projects audited because of suspicions about the application’s completion or validity.

When the department files an objection, the developer has 10 days to answer and can then work with the department to cure the problem.

In December 2005, Buildings audited the eight-story hotel application for 180 Orchard St. and asked the developer for more information on the project, according to spokesperson Sullivan. In March 2006, the developer filed for and received a foundation permit. More than a year later, in July 2007, the developer filed an application for piles to be driven for the foundation, and on Sept. 6, the developer filed a site safety plan.

On Sept. 7 last year, Issac filed an amended plan on behalf of the developer, changing the project to a 26-story, mixed-use hotel and residential condo. That permit was certified by the Department of Buildings itself, rather than “professionally,” Sullivan said. And on Sept. 12, 2007, the permit was again changed to extend the project through to Ludlow St.

That Sept. 12, 2007, permit, however, was reviewed in April of this year, and the department issued the stop-work order on May 29.

Albert@DowntownExpress.com

__________________
I have respected your views, so I expect you to do the same for me.

TalB

TIMES SQUARE GETS A FACELIFT - New York Post
TIMES SQUARE GETS A FACELIFT

GREEN TO ADD 'DRAMA' TO MTV HQ

Posted: 3:28 am
September 2, 2008


FRESH LOOK

Rendering of 1515 B'way.

SL Green doesn't know yet whether media giant Viacom will stay at 1515 Broadway - but the publicly traded commercial real estate giant isn't waiting until then to put a gleaming new face on its imposing but little-adored Times Square tower.

Green, which bought the 2 million square-foot, 54-story building in 2002 for $480 million, has launched a $160 million capital-improvement program.

On the inside, it will include a new lobby, upgrades to the HVAC system and elevators, and environmental enhancements the owners hope will earn the building a silver LEED rating for energy efficiency.

But what Times Square's zillions of visitors will notice will be on the outside.

One striking change, shown for the first time in a rendering on this page, will be a 42-foot tall vertical extension to the protruding glass curtain wall on the lower floors that house the MTV studio and the Minskoff Theater's mezzanine lobby.

The facelift by architects Kohn Pedersen Fox will also overlay limestone portions of the façade and sharp-edged "crown" with brushed aluminum panels.

A few sheets have already been installed near the Minskoff entrance on West 45th Street, giving a hint how the finished job will look.

"In essence, we're re-massing the building," said Steve Durels, SL Green executive vice president and leasing chief. "Our goal is to give it more street presence and more drama, especially as you look at it the lower part."

Although he didn't mention it, the aluminum finish will also set 1515 Broadway off from the Marriott Marquis on the next block.

Right now, the stone portions of the two buildings tend to run together at first glance.

While tourists gape at the bright lights, commercial brokers know 1515 Broadway as a pioneer of Times Square's transformation into a front-office district now home to Condé Nast, Thomson Reuters, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers and Skadden Arps.

At 1515 Broadway, Viacom occupies 1.5 million square feet - or 95 percent of the tower's office space - under several different leases with different expiration dates.

The largest lease, for 1 million feet, is up in 2010.

Durels said, "They have a renewal option we hope they'll exercise, but what's driving our renovation is not to rely upon fact that they'll renew."

Viacom has a total 2.5 million square feet in Manhattan. Last year, it moved its Comedy Central unit from 1775 Broadway to 345 Hudson St., fueling buzz that it might also partly or completely pull out of 1515 Broadway for cheaper rents downtown.

Durels said the average asking rent at 1515 is $90 a square foot. (All but 135,000 feet in the tower has been rented.)

Viacom's existing lease is in the $50 a foot range, close to the "ask" at 345 Hudson.

Viacom is repped by CB Richard Ellis' Michael Laginestra and Scott Gottlieb, who could not be reached.

Built from 1968-1970, 1515 Broadway was once reviled for replacing the beloved old Astor Hotel between West 44 and 45th streets.

The AIA Guide ridiculed its triangular "finial fins" at the top as resembling "the tail of an impaled spaceship."

But SL Green has replaced schlocky retail and fast-food tenants with the likes of Billabong, the MTV store and a Bank of America branch.

The building owner dumped the old movie theaters for the live-music-oriented Nokia Theater.

"We spent $25 million to build the city's state-of-the-art concert venue," Durels said.

Enlarging the glass façade overlooking the "Crossroads of the World" promises to be the most noticeable change yet.

Durels said, "It's not adding floor space, but is purely decorative. It will kind of square off the space and bring more logic to bottom of the tower, which now is slightly under whelming."

steve.cuozzo@nypost.com

__________________
I have respected your views, so I expect you to do the same for me.