Naftali Group’s new limestone condo tower at 800 Fifth Ave gets approved

Naftali Group’s plan to demolish an existing Upper East Side residential building and replace it with a new condominium tower was approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission on Tuesday. Designed by Ulrich Franzen in the 1970s, the existing post-modern building at 800 Fifth Avenue has about 200 rental units. Naftali, which acquired the building over the summer for $810 million, has tapped Robert A.M. Stern Architects (RAMSA) and SLCE to design a new limestone-clad tower with 55 condos and stunning Central Park views.

Replacing Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge’s house at Fifth Avenue and 61st Street, known as the Dodge Mansion, 800 Fifth Avenue was designed by Franzen in 1978 in the post-modern style. At the time, the yellow-brick building attracted negative attention in the press for its design, particularly from New York Times architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable.

Huxtable criticized the design in several articles, calling the architecture “disturbing” and out of scale with its pre-war neighbors. Similarly, architecture critic Paul Golberger had an issue with its mass, which he felt overshadowed the building’s design.

As reported by Crain’s, Naftali Group bought the 33-story Lenox Hill tower from Spitzer Enterprises, former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s firm, and the Winter Organization, for $810 million, with the deal closing in August.

During Tuesday’s meeting, the LPC commissioners commended the design of the new building, which will be the same height as the existing structure at roughly 300 feet tall, but will feature fewer floors.

As seen in many RAMSA-designed buildings, the articulated facade will be made of limestone, either Alabama or Indiana, with grey granite, black metal, and bronze detailing.

According to the presentation, the condos will have double-height windows framed by black metal railings. There’s a recessed loggia at the center of the building that will likely mark the prized penthouse, which will get 17-foot double-height arched windows.

The design received mostly positive feedback from the commissioners, but some points were made about looking further into adding more articulation at the top of the building.

Goldberger submitted a statement in support of the project, calling it a “chance to correct our mistakes.”

“We do not often have the chance to correct our mistakes in New York. But the new design proposed for this site by Robert AM Stern Architects provides exactly that opportunity: replacing an unappealing building that was never well suited to its important Fifth Avenue site, with a discreet, elegant structure whose design emerges out of a careful reading of the immediate architectural context and the deep knowledge of the architectural history of the New York Apartment House.”

Neighborhood group Friends of the Upper East Side supported the design, calling it an improvement, but expressed concerns over the environmental impact of demolition.

“Total demolition is simply indefensible when recladding or renovation is feasible and represents a far more sustainable alternative,” the group testified on Tuesday.

The approval comes a week after the LPC approved a similar project at 985 Fifth Avenue. Eliot Spitzer’s development firm will raze and replace a 25-story rental building with a 20-story tower with just 26 condos.

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