East End Ave and 87th St Complex Sale

[krulltime]

Ailing Beth Israel to sell off Singer complex
Service consolidation; jobs at risk

By Gale Scott
Published on May 24, 2004
Beth Israel Medical Center's board of trustees agreed to put its Herbert and Nell Singer Division on the market. The complex, also known as Beth Israel North, is located on prime real estate across from Gracie Mansion, on East End Avenue at East 87th Street.

A sale of the valuable real estate would give the struggling health care system a desperately needed cash infusion. The aging facility currently houses the Insall Scott Kelly Institute for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine and the Hyman-Newman Institute for Neurology & Neurosurgery, headed by renowned pediatric neurosurgeon Fred Epstein.

As of 2001, Singer had 212 beds in service and 827 employees. Hundreds of those jobs are at risk, according to Jennifer Cunningham, executive director of health care workers' union 1199 SEIU.

Limited job security

Only 40% of the union's 783 members who work at the hospital are protected through job-security provisions.

An e-mail message to employees from Stanley Brezenoff, chief executive of Beth Israel's parent, Continuum Health Care System, says that some of the operations will be transferred to other facilities in the system, including Roosevelt Hospital and Beth Israel Petrie. Continuum facilities are also likely to absorb some displaced workers, particularly the hospital's 275 registered nurses. The expected closing date is Aug. 1.

Beth Israel declined comment.

Copyright 2004, Crain Communications, Inc

[krulltime]

^This could bring in some new residential development. :)

[krulltime]

Rx for the area

NOW that The Post has broken the news that the Singer Division of Beth Israel Hospital has gone on the market, sources tell us there are over 40 bids on the property. Interested parties vary from other hospitals to residential developers, including Donald Trump. The 14-story prewar building on East End Avenue, between 87th and 88th streets, which overlooks Gracie Mansion and the river beyond, may be too nice to be wasted on those simply clinging to life. “They could become the most soughtafter apartments in the city,” said one broker who specializes in upscale real estate. “You just don’t find opportunities like this in Manhattan anymore.”


Copyright 2004 NYP Holdings, Inc.

[krulltime]

NYPOST Real Estate News


June 29, 2004

New Jersey-based Garden Homes Development has emerged as the winning bidder for Beth Israel Hospital's coveted Singer Division property at 170 East End Ave. and two adjacent apartment buildings. Garden Homes is also busy converting 37 Wall St. to rental apartments and recently converted 75 West St. as well.

On the Singer site, Garden affiliate Skyline Developers plans to create luxury condos that will take advantage of East River views.

Beth Israel was repped by CB Richard Ellis's Darcy Stacom and Bill Shanahan, who declined comment. Other sources told my colleague Lois Weiss that the property fetched a staggering $185 million, or $770 per buildable square foot — believed to be a record price for a residential site.

RFR Realty head Aby Rosen, one of the disappointed under-bidders, told Weiss: "I hope they choose a great architect because the city needs great architecture and this is a one-time opportunity."

Meanwhile, Garden Homes is eying a prime development site on Sixth Avenue in the 20s, where luxury apartment towers are fast replacing grimy old structures and parking lots. Sources say Garden Homes is buying the small corner building at 100 W. 25th St. now occupied by a deli and antique galleries.

It's also bidding on the much larger property next door: a 17,600 square-foot, Con Ed-owned parking lot. Cushman & Wakefield's Andrew Behymer is fielding bids for Con Ed but would not comment.

However, sources say bids may top $300 per buildable square foot. Under new zoning, a 177,000 square-foot building can go up as of right.


Copyright 2004 NYP Holdings, Inc.

[Eugenius]

At $770 per buildable square foot, I wouldn't be surprised if they squeezed everything they can out of the construction, resulting in something architecturally nondescript. Given a selling price for luxury apartments of $1000 - $1200 per square foot, I don't see how they can put up something worthwhile and still make money.

[pianoman11686]

Building 'Suburban' Luxury in the Sky

By ANNA BAHNEY

Published: June 5, 2005

IN the last few years, Manhattanites of means have grown accustomed to having the world's most famous architects furiously catering to their every whim, trying to lure them to apartments that seem to break price records with each new building.

The newest entrant is Peter Marino, best known for exquisite interiors created for fashion designers like Giorgio Armani (an apartment in Milan) and Valentino Garavani (a private yacht) and for financiers like Stephen Schwarzman (an apartment at 740 Park Avenue) and David Martinez (one home in London and another atop the Time Warner Center) as well as high-end fashion showrooms evocative of the clothes inside.

Now, in his first building, Mr. Marino, 55, is designing the interiors and exteriors of a new condominium at 170 East End Avenue, between 87th and 88th Streets. The offering plan has not been approved yet, but proposed prices range from $1,600 to $3,000 a square foot - that's at least $3.2 million for a 1,600-square-foot two-bedroom apartment.

To attract buyers, the building will have to up the ante and Mr. Marino's name will undoubtedly help. Star designers and architects like Richard Meier, Charles Gwathmey, David Childs, Costas Kondylis, Cesar Pelli and Philippe Starck have each had their hand in signature buildings in Manhattan recently.

But even the developer of the East End Avenue condos, Orin Wilf, does not seem entirely sure how to present the project to wealthy urban dwellers.

In a meeting recently at Mr. Marino's 58th Street office, Mr. Wilf, 31, who is from a New Jersey real estate family, suggested a "five star" theme. Louise M. Sunshine, whose firm is managing the marketing of his building, put the kibosh on that: Time Warner Center's trademarked catch phrase was "Five Star Living," she reminded him. Besides, any apartment with a hotel attached to it will always win any contest for providing more service. Not worth fighting that battle.

It is natural to appeal to the aesthetic of a buyer, but the "apartment as art" idea may have run its course, too. Richard Meier's glass tower at 165 Charles Street has the tag line of "Living in Art." Charles Gwathmey's building at Astor Place, shaped like an Alvar Aalto vase, is dubbed "Sculpture for Living."

Mr. Marino, gingerly handling a small white model of his building on the table, said it is, "unique," this way of living, with a park and private schools nearby, underground parking, and large apartments.

But the promotional approach of the "apartment as new way of living" has been attempted, too. The developer Ian Schrager even calls his 50 Gramercy Park North, designed by John Pawson "revolutionary." In a video presented on the Downtown by Philippe Starck Web site, an ebullient Mr. Starck suggests that in his building, "suddenly we shall arrive in the new cave of Ali Baba, a new island of happiness, a new island of humanity." All that because of a squash court and bowling alley?

The idea of 170 East End Avenue seems more about family than service, quality of life than state of the art, and more familiar than revolutionary. More like the suburbs.

"Like Greenwich on the Upper East Side," Ms. Sunshine said in a way that was almost a question.

Already that part of Manhattan feels removed, closer to Fairfield County than the West Village. On a recent weekday, sunlight sifted through the trees in Carl Schurz Park surrounding Gracie Mansion as girls in jumpers left the Chapin School and tugged on their guardians' arms for a treat from an ice-cream truck. In an open grassy area, a caravan of Bugaboo Frog baby strollers corralled a dozen preschoolers and their toddling siblings as their mothers chatted.

There is compelling reason to pick a superlative and run with it. A notable $650 a square foot, or about $165 million, was paid for the building's site, where the Beth Israel Medical Center's Singer Division building stood, plus $20 million for two nearby apartment buildings that are going to be refurbished and rented. With 110 apartments in 170 East End Avenue (one to five bedrooms), including two maisonettes, to be sold, everyone involved with the project hopes the prices will surpass the $4,582 a square foot recently paid for the penthouse in Richard Meier's 165 Charles Street building.

Mr. Marino has designed a building with two limestone and glass towers connected by a glass sheath of floor-through and see-through apartments. The building, with the understated moniker 170 East End Avenue, will be home to Mr. Wilf and his family when it is completed in the fall of 2006.

Mr. Wilf, whose company is called Skyline Developers, said that when he went to the 14th floor of the hospital in the spring of 2004, surveyed the park at his feet and the water views beyond, he told the agent, "I will guarantee you I will buy this property."

Six months later his company bought the Rockefeller town houses at 13-15 West 54th Street, opposite the Museum of Modern Art, for $41 million. He is refurbishing them as his company's New York offices (his personal office is the room where Nelson A. Rockefeller died of a heart attack in 1979).

His company is the New York subsidiary of Garden Homes Development, a family company based in Short Hills, N.J., with large national holdings in residential rentals and shopping centers.Mr. Wilf, in his bespoke suits and jocklike gait from collegiate days playing baseball, and Mr. Marino, who cultivates a sort of bad boy of the Upper East Side persona with leather pants and muscle T-shirts, seem an odd pair. But each found in the other a complementary enthusiasm for a first condo project in New York.

Mr. Marino said he had been repeatedly asked by developers to do an apartment building.

"For 27 years I said no," Mr. Marino said. He wanted to do the whole package - the structure, the layouts, the interiors - while many developers wanted him to scale back his involvement, he explained, because of the cost. "I had people just want to use my name," he said, "and I wouldn't have to touch a thing."

But how do you make something wow-inducing when a celebrity architect isn't enough? Each building has its own quirks - or rather - perks. The St. Regis, at 55th Street and Fifth Avenue, has butlers. The Lumière, at 53rd Street and Eighth Avenue, has refrigerators for grocery deliveries. Downtown by Philippe Starck has a bowling alley. And 505 Greenwich has a pet spa.

Mr. Marino's answer is to make residents feel like a homeowners in a gated community, not deed holders in a high-rise tower.

The building, Mr. Wilf said, will have a children's recreation zone that includes a toddler paint room, a computer area for preschoolers, and miniature golf, video games and billiards for older children. There's even a squash court and interactive driving ranges for mom and dad.

And one more thing: sculptures of sheep.

"It is a play on the rural and urban," Mr. Marino said somewhat impishly.

How suburban is that?

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Derek2k3]

"Mr. Marino's answer is to make residents feel like a homeowners in a gated community"

Disgusting. Another wasted opp..The UES has yet to build a nicely designed modern hi-rise that reflects the affluence of the neighborhood. Many exteriors could pass for low-income housing.

[pianoman11686]

From http://cityrealty.com:

New buildling at 170 East End Avenue now in construction 02-SEP-05

The handsome, 14-story, red-brick, Beth Israel Hospital Singer Division building at 170 East End Avenue that overlooked Carl Schurz Park across the avenue and the charming low-rise residential buildings of Henderson Place across 87th Street has been recently demolished and construction has started on a new 19-story, 110-unit condominium apartment building on the site that extends from 87th to 88th Streets.

The new building will have a 19-story tower fronting on the avenue and two low-rise wings on the sidestreets with a large garden between them. The lower two floors of the complex will be faced with limestone and granite and the rest will be faced with limestone-colored pre-cast concrete. The center section of the tower on East Avenue above the entrance will be mostly glass.

Peter P. Marino + Associates is the architect.

In 2004, Beth Israel sold this building and two adjacent apartment buildings on 88th Street to Skyline Developers LLC, an affiliate of Garden Homes Development, which announced its intention to "create world-class, family-oriented luxury condominiums featuring spectacular views overlooking Carl Schurz, Gracie Mansion and the East River." The sales price was reported to be about $700 a buildable square foot, one of the highest on record for a residential project.

Skyline Developers LLC is the corporate umbrella investment vehicle for much of the principal activities of Orin Wilf. Mr. Wilf is a member of the Wilf organization whose business activities are known as Garden Homes and Garden Commercial Properties. In 1955, Harry and Joseph Wilf established Garden Homes to erect single-family houses in New Jersey and subsequently expanded to also develop condominium apartments, office buildings, shopping malls and hotels in the New York metropolitan region as well as in California, Maryland, Florida, Pennsylvania and Delaware, Arizona and Israel.

Garden Homes Development is based in Short Hills, New Jersey and has operations in 37 states. Its other activities in New York City include condominium apartment conversions of properties at 280 Park South and 75 West Street. It is also converting 41 Broad Street for the Claremont Academy Preparatory School and converting 37 Wall Street to 350 rental apartments.

When completed late next year, the building will have a garage and a children's recreation zone that includes a toddler paint room, a computer area for preschoolers, and miniature golf, video games and billiards for older children. The building will also have a squash court and an interactive driving range.

The former hospital building was erected in 1929 as Doctors’ Hospital and was acquired by Beth Israel Medical Center in 1987. Beth Israel is located on Stuyvesant Square at First Avenue and 16th Street and this facility was known as Beth Israel North and Beth Israel Herbert and Nell Singer Division and housed the Insall Scott Kelly Institute for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine and the Hyman-Newman Institute for Neurology & Neurosurgery. In 2001, the medical facility had about 210 beds and more than 800 employees. Beth Israel is operated by Continuum Health Care System, a conglomerate of hospitals that also includes Roosevelt Hospital, St. Luke’s Hospital, Long Island College Hospital and New York Eye & Ear Infirmary.

There is good cross-town bus service at 86th Street and First Avenue and two of the finest girls’ schools in the city, Brearley and Chapin are a few blocks to the south.

[krulltime]

http://www.pbase.com/image/48860783.jpg

[sfenn1117]

Any pics of the building that was demolished?

This is just another bleh residential. Not surprising.

[krulltime]

Sales center open at 170 East End Avenue

http://www.cityrealty.com/graphics/uploads/1133887757_eea170.gif


Residential condominium apartments at 170 East End Avenue, which is now in construction, will start at about $2 million for one-bedroom units.

The 110-unit building will have units ranging in size from 1- to 5-bedroom apartments.

It has been designed by Peter P. Marino + Architects and is being developed by Skyline Developers, LLC, of which Orin Wilf is a principal.

The new building will have an unusual façade of deeply-inset, multi-paned windows, many balconies with glass railings, and a center section facing East End Avenue of clad only in glass. Vertically, the north and south wings on the avenue is broken into three sections with different pier arrangements in limestone-colored pre-cast concrete.

The two-story base on either side of the entrance will be rusticated limestone. Low-rise wings extend from the tower on the avenue along the side-streets framing a large communal garden.

When completed late next year, the building will have a garage and a children's recreation zone that includes a toddler paint room, a computer area for preschoolers, and miniature golf, video games and billiards for older children. The building will also have a squash court and an interactive driving range.

The building is expected to be ready for occupancy in Spring 2007.

A sales office at 530 East 88th Street opened a few weeks ago.

The site was acquired by Skyline for about $650 a square foot, or about $165 million and an addition $20 million was spent for two nearby apartment buildings that are going to be refurbished and rented.

It is on the former site of the handsome, 14-story, red-brick Beth Israel Medical Center Singer Division between 87th and 88th Streets and it overlooks Carl Schurz Park to the east and Henderson Place to the south. The former hospital building was erected in 1929 as Doctors’ Hospital and was acquired by Beth Israel Medical Center in 1987. Beth Israel is located on Stuyvesant Square at First Avenue and 16th Street and this facility was known as Beth Israel North and Beth Israel Herbert and Nell Singer Division and housed the Insall Scott Kelly Institute for Orthopedics and Sports Medicine and the Hyman-Newman Institute for Neurology & Neurosurgery. In 2001, the medical facility had about 210 beds and more than 800 employees. Beth Israel is operated by Continuum Health Care System, a conglomerate of hospitals that also includes Roosevelt Hospital, St. Luke’s Hospital, Long Island College Hospital and New York Eye & Ear Infirmary.

Mr. Wilf is a member of the Wilf organization whose business activities are known as Garden Homes and Garden Commercial Properties. In 1955, Harry and Joseph Wilf established Garden Homes to erect single-family houses in New Jersey and subsequently expanded to also develop condominium apartments, office buildings, shopping malls and hotels in the New York metropolitan region as well as in California, Maryland, Florida, Pennsylvania and Delaware, Arizona and Israel.

Garden Homes Development is based in Short Hills, New Jersey and has operations in 37 states. Its other activities in New York City include condominium apartment conversions of properties at 280 Park South and 75 West Street. It is also converting 41 Broad Street for the Claremont Academy Preparatory School and converting 37 Wall Street to 350 rental apartments.


Copyright © 1994-2005 CITY REALTY

[lofter1]

When completed late next year, the building will have a garage and a children's recreation zone that includes a toddler paint room, a computer area for preschoolers ...
That at least should help to keep the sidewalks clear of baby carriages.

[pianoman11686]

From http://cityrealty.com:

170 East End Avenue will have waterfall and sheep 14-DEC-05

At the opening last night of the sales office for 170 East End Avenue, which is under construction next door, Orin Wolf, the developer, was asked by CityRealty.com about why he decided not to retain the handsome, pre-war façade of the building formerly on the site that belonged to Beth Israel Medical Center Singer Division.

"It was handsome," Mr. Wilf conceded, but the site, he continued, deserved something more spectacular.

Indeed, the location directly north of the lovely townhouse enclave on Henderson Place and directly across from Gracie Mansion and Carl Schurz Park is highly visible and the new sales office has very large panoramic vistas of the very impressive views the new building will have of the East River.

At the reception, Mr. Wilf donated a check for $100,000 to the Carl Schurz Park Association as guests studied floorplans, a model of the building and examples of the kitchens and bathrooms designed by Peter Marino, the well-known designer of many famous retail facilities and celebrity apartments. Mr. Marino is also the architect for the project, his first residential building project.

His designs of this project’s lobby, kitchens and bathrooms are extremely sleek and sumptuous and very, very beautiful. They are, in a word, spectacular.

It’s too early, of course, to judge the building, but a large model at the sales office indicated that it will be, at the very least, impressive.

The building’s design has a very high fenestration ratio and a Mondianesque-grid patterning that incorporates thin dark balconies with glass railings, deeply inset, multi-paned windows, and limestone-colored pre-cast concrete facades. The two-story base of the building will be rusticated limestone. Different sections of the building have their own pier arrangements and the center of the building is clear glass, which visually attempts to divide the mass of the building into two towers. Low-rise wings extend from the tower on the avenue along the side-streets framing a large communal garden.

At the reception, Mr. Marino sat on one of the large toy sheep that will be placed in the project’s large rear garden in front of a large waterfall that will be visible from the building’s entrance on East End Avenue.

The 110-unit, 19-story building will have units ranging in size from 1- to 5-bedroom apartments and is being developed by Skyline Developers, LLC, of which Orin Wilf is a principal.

Mr. Wilf is a member of the Wilf organization whose business activities are known as Garden Homes and Garden Commercial Properties. In 1955, Harry and Joseph Wilf established Garden Homes to erect single-family houses in New Jersey and subsequently expanded to also develop condominium apartments, office buildings, shopping malls and hotels in the New York metropolitan region as well as in California, Maryland, Florida, Pennsylvania and Delaware, Arizona and Israel.

Garden Homes Development is based in Short Hills, New Jersey and has operations in 37 states. Its other activities in New York City include condominium apartment conversions of properties at 280 Park South and 75 West Street. It is also converting 41 Broad Street for the Claremont Academy Preparatory School and converting 37 Wall Street to 350 rental apartments.

When completed in early 2007, the building will have a garage and a children's recreation zone that includes a toddler paint room, a computer area for preschoolers, and miniature golf, video games and billiards for older children. The building will also have a squash court and an interactive driving range.

The 14-story, red-brick Beth Israel Medical Center Singer Division building between 87th and 88th Streets had been erected in 1929 as Doctors’ Hospital and was acquired by Beth Israel Medical Center in 1987.

http://www.cityrealty.com/graphics/uploads/1134601042_eea170c.gif

[krulltime]

Oh my God! They will have sheep! For NYC, How twisted is that? What will they do with them in the winter time? Maybe use them in a Nativity scene? Hahaha!

http://www.pbase.com/image/54160997.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/image/54160986.jpg

[macreator]

Oh my God! They will have sheep! For NYC, How twisted is that? What will they do with them in the winter time?

I believe the sheep are not going to be real, but will instead be sculptures.

[antinimby]

Aw, that's a shame for the residents. They'd have fresh lamb chops should there be another transit strike and getting to the store is not convenient.

[pianoman11686]

From http://cityrealty.com/new_developments:

http://www.cityrealty.com/graphics/uploads/1152559845_wilf2.gif

170 East End Avenue topped out 10-JUL-06

A topping-out ceremony of the 19-story residential condominium building under construction at 170 East End Avenue was held this morning on the building’s 12th floor.

Orin Wilf, shown at the right, a principal of Skyline Developers, LLC, the project’s developer, said that about 50 percent of the building’s 110 apartments have already been sold. The building is scheduled for completion next Spring.

Mr. Wilf told CityRealty.com that the high-end of the market has “really taken off” over the past two or three months and that he expects the project to be sold out by the time it is ready for occupancy.

The building occupies the blockfront on East End Avenue between 87th and 88th Streets directly to the north of the low-rise buildings on Henderson Place. The site, which is a stone throw away from Gracie Mansion in Carl Schurz Park, was formerly occupied by the Beth Israel Medical Center Singer Division.

The building’s design by Peter Marino has a very high fenestration ratio and a Mondianesque-grid patterning that incorporates thin dark balconies with glass railings, deeply inset, multi-paned windows, and limestone-colored pre-cast concrete facades. The two-story base of the building will be rusticated limestone. Different sections of the building have their own pier arrangements and the center of the building is clear glass, which visually attempts to divide the mass of the building into two towers. Low-rise wings extend from the tower on the avenue along the side-streets framing a large communal garden.

Apartments will range in size from 1- to 5-bedroom apartments.

A five-bedroom, eight-and-a-half bath unit with 6,336 square feet is priced at about $14,400,000. A five-bedroom, six-and-a-half bath apartment with 4,924 square feet is priced at about $15 million. A four-bedroom, 5 bath unit with 3,916 square feet is priced at about $7,500,000. A two-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath unit with 1,500 square feet is priced at about $2,595,000. A one-bedroom with one-and-a-half baths and 1,008 square feet is priced at $1,015,000.

The building will have a large rear garden with a large waterfall that will be visible form the building’s entrance on East End Avenue.

Mr. Wilf’s organization’s business activities are known as Garden Homes and Garden Commercial Properties. In 1955, Harry and Joseph Wilf established Garden Homes to erect single-family houses in New Jersey and subsequently expanded to also develop condominium apartments, office buildings, shopping malls and hotels in the New York metropolitan region as well as in California, Maryland, Florida, Pennsylvania and Delaware, Arizona and Israel. Garden Homes Development is based in Short Hills, New Jersey and has operations in 37 states.

Its other activities in New York City include condominium apartment conversions of properties at 280 Park South and 75 West Street. It is also converting 41 Broad Street for the Claremont Academy Preparatory School and converting 37 Wall Street to 350 rental apartments. Mr. Wilf said that 37 Wall Street’s conversion should be finished in October.

When completed, 170 East End Avenue will have a garage and a children's recreation zone that includes a toddler paint room, a computer area for preschoolers, and miniature golf, video games and billiards for older children. The building will also have a squash court and an interactive driving range.

[Peakrate212]

Can I make a dirty joke about the sheep?

hehehehhhe

[antinimby]

Taken on 9/20/2006 from Carl Shulz Park across the street.

http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/8053/170eastendsoutheq4.jpg


http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/8554/170eastendnorthmb7.jpg

[Ansky99]

I heard the building is two stories above its maximum allowed height. There has been very little noticeable work on the building in the last month or so and supposedly the developers are in litigation. Any truth to this??

[perskyb]

How do you know the building may be too tall? What litigation with the developers are you referring to?

[antinimby]

^ He doesn't. That's why he's asking.

[krulltime]

At first I was dissapointed and I hated that rendering, but I actually like how this one is turning out...


June 8, 2007:


http://www.pbase.com/image/80187818.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/image/80187815.jpg

[Skylimitone]

Looking good

05.17.2008

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2312/2502665008_51a98b6ed9.jpg?v=0