Reply With QuoteI saw that this morning. This is great news!Originally Posted by antinimby
A snippet of news from the NY Sun today...
...Next year, demolition is expected to begin on the 20-story, 124-unit residential rental apartment building at 220 Central Park South. The building, finished in 1954, is a through-block that extends to West 58th Street. The property was acquired in August 2005 for $132 million by a joint venture of Clarett Group and Vornado Realty Trust. Many of the tenants have vacated the building, which will be demolished to make way for a 41-story glass condominium tower. Units are expected to sell for more than $2,500 a square foot...
I saw that this morning. This is great news!
This is good news and will be interesting to watch after the success of 15CPW. I wonder if the idea will be to match the exclusivity of that building and the Plaza.
Is this project still alive? Any news?
This project is moving forward. Rent control makes me sick though. It's absurd that these greedy tenants are holding out for more than $1m each.
Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times
"A Victory for Tenants"
Published: June 15, 2008
OFF the construction-choked streets of Manhattan, tenants are in court fighting condominium developers, in search of justice — or at least a bigger settlement.
At 220 Central Park South, 22 tenants recently won a small victory in State Supreme Court in Manhattan that could eventually delay the demolition of their building for a 41-story glass tower. In a ruling on June 4, Justice Paul G. Feinman found that state law may require the state to conduct a formal environmental review, including a study of what effect the project, and its influx of wealthy buyers, “may have on population patterns or existing community character.”
The decision rejected efforts by the developers, the Clarett Group and Vornado Realty Trust, to dismiss the tenant suit.
Jack L. Lester, a lawyer for the tenants, said the ruling marked the first time a court had found that environmental regulations might be used to protect tenants under the state’s rent-stabilization law.
Veronica W. Hackett, the managing partner of the Clarett Group, minimized the decision’s significance. She said that a state hearing officer had been assigned to the group’s eviction case and that she expected the hearings to get under way soon.
James Plastiras, a spokesman for the State Division of Housing and Community Renewal, suggested that the hearings might be delayed because of the lawsuit. “We are reviewing all possible options,” he said.
The proposed demolition, announced last year, involves the eviction of 80 tenants from a large postwar building. All but 30 tenants have since left the building, including market-rent tenants and rent-regulated tenants who have accepted buyouts.
Mr. Lester said the tenants he represents had rejected an offer of $1 million per apartment to leave the building and were seeking a higher offer.
They include Jean E. Shimotake, a partner at the law firm of White & Case, and Leighton Candler, a well-known broker at the Corcoran Group. Ms. Candler was recently selected to handle the sale of the late Brooke Astor’s duplex co-op at 778 Park Avenue with an asking price $46 million.
E-mail: bigdeal@nytimes.com
"...may require the state to conduct a formal environmental review, including a study of what effect the project, and its influx of wealthy buyers, may have on population patterns or existing community character.”
This is ridiculous.
1mil/ 1 apt, thats absurd. These guys are cheaing people and aren't even trying to make it look like their trying to be fair. The apartments their going to build are definately going to be worth 4 -5 times that if not more. This is on CENTRAL PARK. Everything turns to gold that gets built along here, the ultimate amenity. They should at least try and look fair and not the cheap exploiting bums they are.
paying someone $1m to move out of an apartment they do not own is absurd. But not because -- as you imply -- it is too little.
A partner in a law firm? This is a joke. Paying someone $1m to move out is crazy. They should all be de-controlled and kicked out for refusing that.
Who is cheating whom? You're so far off base
It's beyond ridiculous. It's absolutely ludricrous. I can't believe the State Supreme Court can even make that kind of absurd statement.
So in this "free" country, there are neighborhoods in which if you have money, you can't live in and that neighborhood just happens to be on Central Park South?
Have the crappy hotel and garage on 58th St. been razed yet? Obviously, this project won't be built any time soon, but I'd at least like to see the crap razed.
Since I'm stuck in the sticks, I can't survey the site myself.
220 and 240 Central Park South
MODS: Could this thread title be altered to read:
220 and 240 Central Park South
The current thread title, with four three-letter words including the abbreviation for Central Park South, does not register on a search.
I entered the existing thread title into "Search Titles Only" and come up with this result:
A case where a thread title is both insufficient and unhelpful.Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms.
The building at 225 227 West 58th Street (next door to the 58th Street side of the 220 Central Park South building) has been demolished and now there is a big "EXTELL" sign posted on the fence there. DOB shows a Demo Permit signed off in August 2008, but the Job Overview for the address has no substantial news of any plans for this site.
Two buildings to the west, 229 and 231 W. 58th, both look empty and near the end of their useful lives.
For now the cleared site at 225-227 is being used as a parking lot for some heavy equipment, including an Escalade ...
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Thanks for the update, Lofter. I can't wait to see these eyesores razed. It's amazing that these underutilized properties are one block from Central Park.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/04072009
business/tower_power_on_central_park_163256.htm
TOWER POWER ON CENTRAL PARK
April 7, 2009
THE state Appellate Divi sion -- the same folks who recently clobbered Tishman Speyer by ruling that deregulating rent-stabilized apartments at Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village was illegal -- just helped Vornado Realty Trust and Clarett Group get out of a pickle with their own tenant antagonists.
The development partnership, known as Madave Properties SPE, had been stymied by two different court cases before the same judge in its quest to vacate 220 Central Park South in order to demolish it and replace it with a new apartment tower.
But last week, the Appellate panel unanimously reversed a lower-court ruling that could have indefinitely stalled the already behind-schedule razing of the 22-story rent-stabilized, white-brick apartment building between Broadway and Columbus Circle.
Vornado and Clarett bought 220 CPS in 2005 for $131.5 million, with plans to knock it down and replace it with a 41-story, glass apartment tower. Under state law, the Division of Housing and Community Renewal may permit a landlord to deny lease renewals to rent-stabilized tenants in buildings to be razed as long as certain requirements are met.
The developers began buying out tenants and sought the DHCR's blessing not to renew leases of those still at 220 CPS in May 2006. But the agency held off while an unrelated lawsuit involving DHCR and similar applications at certain buildings owned by a different developer wended its way through the courts.
In that case, first heard by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Paul G. Feinman, tenants claimed DHCR's rules did not adequately define what was meant by the word "demolition" -- and Feinman agreed with them.
The Appellate Division reversed Feinman last June, but the delay had by then cost Vornado and Clarett a year. Then, during the same month, Fein man sided with 20-odd remaining tenants of 220 CPS in a suit they filed in 2007, ar guing that DHCR should produce an environmental impact statement before allowing Madave to deny lease renewals in preparation for demolition.
Although Feinman's ruling didn't require DHCR to get an EIS, it would have allowed the tenants to continue pressing their claim to make the agency do so -- a process that could have delayed the project for years more.
The developers opposed the decision for obvious reasons. DHCR also took issue with it on the basis that the agency lacks expertise to conduct an environmental impact study and that environmental review is not part of its mission. ...
PS: This crap can't come down soon enough. It's amazing that this blighted block sits on some of the most expensive real estate in the world.
Last edited by londonlawyer; April 7th, 2009 at 12:17 PM.
Then again, I don't know how many more dirt lots this area can afford to be hit with, especially in the down economy.
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