Proposed: 59 story tower - 250 East 57th St @ 2nd Ave - by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

**londonlawyer** · November 5th, 2009, 01:06 PM

Thanks.

Is 201 the beautiful building on Third? If so, that represents all that's wrong with this f..cked up city. What a shame.

**londonlawyer** · December 7th, 2009, 05:49 PM

http://a810-bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/Jo...ssdocnumber=01

Papers were filed today in connection with demolition. Does anyone know if the sidewalk shed has been erected?

**londonlawyer** · December 16th, 2009, 06:43 PM

http://a810-bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/Jo...ssdocnumber=01

Hopefully, demolition will start soon.

**MidtownGuy** · December 17th, 2009, 08:16 PM

This will be such an improvement on that block if it gets built as depicted in the renderings.

**londonlawyer** · December 18th, 2009, 07:58 PM

I agree. I'll be happy just to see that ugly school razed. If you're ever in that area, MTG, please indicate if sidewalk sheds have been erected in conjunction with demolition of this POS.

**londonlawyer** · December 21st, 2009, 04:37 PM

http://a810-bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/Jo...ssdocnumber=01

**MidtownGuy** · December 21st, 2009, 04:47 PM

I'll walk by and have a look.

**londonlawyer** · December 21st, 2009, 05:08 PM

Gracias, amigo.

Can you take a photo?

**MidtownGuy** · December 21st, 2009, 05:12 PM

Sure. By the way, that hotel on Lexington &48th has gotten a lot more blue glass so I'll try to get that too.

**londonlawyer** · December 21st, 2009, 05:15 PM

Thanks. Does the glass look decent or does it look like mierda con cebollas?

**MidtownGuy** · December 22nd, 2009, 06:16 PM

I don't like it. Very wavy, very blue.

**londonlawyer** · December 22nd, 2009, 06:51 PM

Thanks for the update. Has the sidewalk shed been put up for 250 E 57th?

**londonlawyer** · December 22nd, 2009, 07:25 PM

http://www.cityrealty.com/new-york-c...-horsley/29462

Mixed-use project at 250 East 57th Street will have hour-glass figure

December 22, 2009 By Carter B. Horsley

A new rendering has been produced for the mixed-use project on the southwest corner of 57th Street and Second Avenue that will replace the low-rise High School of Art and Design and Public School 59.

A new school will occupy part of the new structure's 11-story base that will also include 166,000 square feet of retail space including a 47,00-square-foot Whole Foods store.

The top 59 floors of the project will have residential bases.

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill is the architect and the World Wide Group is the developer.

The glass-clad tower will have steeply-angled facades that will radically alter its appearance from different directions and will seem to have an extreme hour-glass pinched figure.

A $4.2 billion air rights agreement to build an educational, residential and retail complex at 250 East 57th Street in Manhattan has recently been closed, according to real estate and construction law firm Anderson Kill who directed the deal.

The project, which is a collaboration between the New York City Educational Construction Fund and the World Wide Group, includes a new 1,400-student high school that will replace the existing High School for Art and Design, a new 730-seat elementary school, the retail space and a 488,000 sq-ft, 320-unit residential tower.

World-Wide Group recently completed construction on a school on East 63rd Street, located at the converted Annex of the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, which will house PS 59 during the construction phases. After PS 59 relocates to its newly renovated home on 57th Street, the 63rd Street site will continue to serve as a new neighborhood school.

"We're enthusiastic and honored to be working with the ECF to build new schools, new retail and new housing that will revitalize and energize this important intersection of the Upper East Side," said Julia Hodgson, director of development for The World-Wide Group.

About 20 percent of the 320 rental units will be affordable housing and the project will also utilize the Inclusionary Housing Program, according to developers World Wide Group, which will result in approximately 30 additional affordable units within Community Board #6 limits.

The Educational Construction Fund was created in 1966 and it best known for its mixed-use developments such as the office-building/Norman Thomas High School on the southeast corner of Park Avenue and 34th Street and the apartment building/Robert F. Kennedy School on 88th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues.

**londonlawyer** · December 22nd, 2009, 08:53 PM

12/21/09 curbed.com

Dramatic 57th Street Tower Springs to Life (on the Internet)

Big things are happening at the corner of Second Avenue and 57th Street, but how big remains to be seen. We're talking about 250 East 57th Street, the World-Wide Group's plan to replace a school building with a new school, a Whole Foods, more retail and, oh yeah, a 59-story residential tower designed by SOM that tapers and widens as it pierces the East Side sky. Back in September it was reported that the tower is on hold while Phase I—the school and the retail in an 11-story base—proceeds. That still appears to be the plan, and a tipster points out that a slew of new permits related to the demolition of the current building at the site have recently been issued. Even if the SOM tower (it really needs a fun new nickname, btw) doesn't rise, we can still enjoy the renderings posted on the website launched to market the building's retail spaces. They're in the gallery above, and they're really making us crave some organic goji berries.