4 Downing Street (r), 8 Downing Street (l). Renderings courtesy of Urban Compass.
The much-discussed new condos at the site of the former Broken Angel House at 4-8 Downing Street in Clinton Hill are officially on the market. Ten “hand-crafted condominium residences,” developed by Barrett Design and Development will include eight two- and three-bedrooms in the original building at 4 Downing and two two-story “generously scaled three bedroom homes” in the newly-constructed 8 Downing.
Rendering of 2183 Third Avenue via Gerald J. Caliendo Architects (L); The project site prior to construction(R)
Here’s our first look at 2183 Third Avenue, an under-construction mixed-use project in East Harlem being developed by Sharon Kahen and Haim Levi’s East 119th Street Development LLC. The parcel at the northeast corner of East 119th Street and Third Avenue is giving rise to a 12-story, 64,000-square-foot building designed by the prolific Gerald J. Caliendo Architects. The building will contain 59 rental units, retail space, and a medical facility at ground level.
In 2003, East Harlem underwent a 57-block rezoning spearheaded by the Bloomberg administration’s City Planning chair Amanda Burden. The revision, the neighborhood’s first in 40 years, increased density allowances along First, Second, and Third Avenues, while preserving the human-scaled midblocks in between. Over the past decade, more than a dozen residential mid-rises, roughly 8-12 stories, have blossomed along the area’s wide, well-trafficked corridors. Recent developments spurred by the rezoning include Barry Rice’s 119th & Third, Hunter College’s Silberman School of Social Work, and Kahen and Levi’s own CL Tower at Third Avenue and East 121st Street, two blocks north of their current project site.
155W 18th Street under construction © 6sqft
Flying under the radar, an 11-story, 30-unit condominium at 155 West 18th Street has topped off and is applying a dignified bluestone facade to its concrete structural frame. Developed by Eldad Blaustein’s Izaki Group and designed by ODA Architects, 155W 18th joins a list of recent and upcoming downtown residential buildings sensitive to the rhythms and proportions of their neighbors, while still introducing fresh forms and rich materials to excite our senses and enhance our surroundings.
With young design firms such as ODA, SHoP, and DDG leading the way, a cool and confident downtown vernacular has emerged, trading cookie-cutter layouts, flat glass skins, and pastiche styling for spacious light-filled floor plans and exteriors composed of sumptuous materials that provide a kind of weight and timelessness to the structures.
In the shadow of the Empire State Building, the concrete frame of 855 Sixth Avenue has quietly risen to its full 500-foot height. Spanning the full western blockfront of Sixth Avenue between West 30th and 31st Streets, the 41-story mixed-use tower, designed by COOKFOX Architects and co-developed by the Durst Organization and Fetner Properties, is poised to bring 190,000 square feet of commercial space and 375 rentals to the southern fringe of Herald Square later this year.
While unremarkable in design and imperceptible in the city’s skyline, the building’s small claim to fame may be that its 152-meter (slightly under 500 feet) height is sometimes regarded as the benchmark figure for defining a skyscraper. Therefore, statistically, 855 Sixth could be considered the shortest skyscraper in New York. Huzzah!
Image © Wade Zimmerman courtesy of Agence Christian de Portzamparc (ACDP)
Watch where you walk when treading near supertall towers. The WSJ reports that a stop work order has been issued at One57 after a kitchen table-sized piece of Plexiglass fell from the 22nd floor of the tower on Sunday, smashing into two parked cars down below. Thankfully no one was injured in the incident, but the accident is just one in a slew of construction mishaps that have plagued the building. In late February, glass from the tower landed on a neighboring building’s terrace, and last May, a windowpane fell from the 22nd floor, hitting a truck below. The building was also creating precarious conditions back in 2012 during Super Storm Sandy, when all of New York City looked on in horror as the support cable of an 80-ton crane at the top of the building broke, causing it dangle above their heads.
With the debut of their newly-sharpened website, the visual-realization whizzes at AJSNY are seeking to steal some Apple Watch buzz with this stunningly whimsical rooftop addition atop the now-under-conversion 212 Fifth Avenue in Nomad.
The conceptual vision, designed by the rendering team themselves, shows a bronze-clad, multi-story addition wrapped with sinuous ribbons framing an enormous south-facing clock. Below the steampunk-esque penthouse, AJSNY depicts a standard condo-conversion affair of open layouts and double-height spaces for the 1913 neo-medieval tower. The team’s images also give us an idea of what the official owners–Madison Equities, Thor Equities, and Building and Land Technology–have in mind for this quintessential Manhattan address. The scheme is not official or approved, but it certainly is creative.
Image: MTA Capital Construction / Rehema Trimiew
It seems to be taking forever for the Second Avenue Subway (SAS) to be finished, but alas, never say never. Yesterday evening, community members and MTA Capital Construction officials gathered at Temple Israel for the SAS eighth quarterly workshop to discuss the line’s construction updates, future plans and to take any comments or concerns from citizens. In his opening statement, MTA Capital Construction President Dr. Michael Horodniceanu reported that Phase I is now 78.7 percent complete (as of February 1, 2015). The number seemed to please many, but in light of the MTA’s budget crisis, the top question on everyone’s mind was still: “Is this thing on schedule to be completed in December 2016?” Dr. Horodniceanu reassured everyone, “We’ve been having these workshops for four years, and the date has stayed the same.”
In December we broke the news that 42-12 28th Street, known as 28 on 28th, in Long Island City would top out at 58 stories and 648 feet. Now, Goldstein, Hill & West’s (GHWA) affiliated interior design firm, Whitehall Interiors NYC, has given us our first look at the amenities of Heatherwood Communities’ upcoming rental tower. The perks include a swimming pool and attended parking garage–and they also give us a glimpse of how the units themselves may be designed.
The construction site already has steel re-bar poking up above street-level, meaning the tower will soon race skyward, eventually taking its place as the tallest residential skyscraper in New York City outside of Manhattan.
Groundwork continues on Extell Development’s 847-foot-tall mega-rental complex at the foot of the Manhattan Bridge. Rumored to be called One Manhattan Square, the project at 250 South Street will bring a staggering 790 luxury rentals and 205 affordable units to a remote section of the Two Bridges/Chinatown neighborhood. The project rises on the former site of a cherished one-story Pathmark supermarket and its sprawling parking lot.
While details of the design remain scarce, public documents reveal a two-towered development of 68 and 23 stories to rise atop a three-story podium that will contain 30,000 square feet of retail. Blogger Bowery Boogie uncovered the residential amenity package, which will include two swimming pools, a health club, basketball court, squash court, bowling alley, golf simulator, and 137 on-site parking spaces.
Esteemed architect and historian Robert A.M. Stern once said that “New York is a constellation of magic moments. No city as complex as New York rebuilds itself so often, and often so well.” Two stars are being born in that nebula of irregular streets we call Downtown. The taller of the two, 30 Park Place, is designed by the famed starchitect himself, and has recently surpassed its neighbor, the Woolworth Building, to soon take its place as the tallest residential perch in the district. The other star, 56 Leonard, may still shine brighter, however. While absent any height superlatives, 56 Leonard may very well end up being the most interesting skyscraper Downtown has produced in decades.
Nicknamed the “Jenga-building” and the “tower of penthouses,” 56 Leonard’s design comes from the Swiss architectural firm of Herzog & de Meuron while working with the residential know-it-alls at Goldstein Hill & West. Currently, the concrete frame is approximately 700 feet tall with little more than 100 feet to rise before topping off. The floors progressively stagger at varying configurations creating cantilevered interior spaces as well as outdoor balconies for each of the residences.
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